Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia pulpican

Maylandia pulpican "Maingano Island"

Maingano Island — mah-een-GAH-noh EYE-land (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 pulpican account →

Specific to Maingano Island

  • 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 pulpican.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size2.8 in7.1 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth13–98 ft4–30 m
DietAufwuchs grazer; opportunistic plankton feeder
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~30 fry (aquarium; wild data unavailable)
Sexual dimorphismYesMales larger and deeply blue-black with bold bars; females smaller, greyish-brown with yellow anal fin and weaker barring.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Maingano Island population

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

Colour reference: living Maingano Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia pulpican is a small, sharply patterned mbuna from the islands and Mozambican shores of southern Lake Malawi. Males wear a base coat of steel-blue to near-black, broken by bold vertical bars, and defend territories with a combativeness that the describer memorialized in the fish's name — pulpican is a Breton word for the goblin-dwarves of Armorican folklore, creatures famous for harassing anything that crosses their path. Like the best of the mbunas, it rewards a well-set-up aquarium with constant activity and, for a keeper who pays attention to stocking, straightforward breeding.

Full Maylandia pulpican account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia pulpican "Maingano Island"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia pulpican summary page
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — pulpican, Cynotilapia (species record, updated May 2026)
  4. GBIF — Maylandia pulpican (Tawil, 2002), taxon key 11031359
  5. The ETYFish Project — Family Cichlidae part 4 (Pseudocrenilabrinae: Labeotropheus–Otopharynx)
  6. Tawil, P. 2002 — Description de Cynotilapia pulpican n. sp. (abstract via malawicichlids.com)