Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia phaeos

Maylandia phaeos "Cobwe"

Cobwe — KOH-bweh (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Maylandia phaeos account →

Specific to Cobwe

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Maylandia phaeos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.4 in8.65 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth16–98 ft5–30 m
DietAufwuchs scraper (diatoms and cyanobacteria)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder10–30 eggs (malawi.si field data)
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males blue with 7–9 black vertical bars and a dark dorsal submarginal band; females and juveniles yellow (Flavifemina group) — among the most visually dimorphic mbuna.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Cobwe population

Maylandia phaeos "Cobwe" is the Cobwe population of Maylandia phaeos, a geographic colour form from Lake Malawi in Lake Malawi part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia phaeos, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Cobwe fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia phaeos is a rock-dwelling mbuna cichlid endemic to a narrow band of the central-eastern shoreline of Lake Malawi, from Cobwé in Mozambique northward to Undu Point in Tanzania. Its breeding males are a clean steel-blue crossed with seven to nine narrow black vertical bars and a distinctive dark submarginal band in the dorsal fin — the mark that gave the species its name, from the Greek for dusk. Females of this species belong to the so-called Flavifemina group: where most mbuna females are cryptically barred, phaeos females are strikingly yellow, making the pair the most visually mismatched couple at any reef it inhabits.

Full Maylandia phaeos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia phaeos "Cobwe"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia phaeos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), summary page (SpecCode 50172)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Metriaclima phaeos / Maylandia phaeos, species record (spid 64700), updated May 2026
  4. GBIF — Maylandia phaeos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), taxon key 2373000
  5. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae, l–o): Maylandia phaeos etymology ('dusk, dusky dorsal band')
  6. Stauffer, J.R. Jr., Bowers, N.J., Kellogg, K.A. and McKaye, K.R. 1997 — 'A revision of the blue-black Pseudotropheus zebra (Teleostei: Cichlidae) complex from Lake Malawi, Africa, with a description of a new genus and ten new species.' Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 148:189–230 (original description, via FishBase ref. 27596)