Maylandia sp. "Dolphin" "Thumbi Reef"
Thumbi Reef — TOOM-bee REEF (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 sp. "Dolphin" account →Specific to Thumbi Reef
- 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 sp. "Dolphin".
The Thumbi Reef population
Maylandia sp. "Dolphin" "Thumbi Reef" is the Thumbi Reef population of Maylandia sp. "Dolphin", a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Malawi in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia sp. "Dolphin", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Thumbi Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Maylandia sp. "Dolphin" is an undescribed zebra-complex mbuna recorded from a cluster of reefs on the Tanzanian shore of northern Lake Malawi. It is known only by this trade name, with no formal scientific description, authority, or FishBase entry behind it. As with the great majority of Malawi's undescribed mbuna, most of what can be said about it follows from its genus rather than from study of the population itself: it is presumed to be a rock-grazing algae-eater and a maternal mouthbrooder, but its specific colouration has not been documented in any source consulted for this article.
Full Maylandia sp. "Dolphin" account →