Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia staufferi

Maylandia sp. "Msobo" "Pombo Rocks"

Maylandia staufferi (Lundu, Lutara Reef, Magunga, Manda, Ndumbi Point, Ngwasi, Pombo Rocks)

Pombo Rocks — POHM-boh ROKS (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 staufferi account →

Specific to Pombo Rocks

  • 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 staufferi.

IUCNNOT EVALUATED
NEnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesMaylandia greshakeidescribed as Pseudotropheus (Maylandia) greshakei Meyer & Förster 1984
Scientific size4.5 in12 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Habitat watermoderately soft, alkaline, well-buffered79 ppmLake Malawi
Depth23–82 ft7–25 m
DietAufwuchs (algae) grazer
BreedingMaternal mouthbroodermodest; ~20-30 eggs (genus-typical; larger females carry more)
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong and developmental: juveniles and adult females are uniform bright orange-yellow, while maturing males switch to dark speckled blue-black. No OB/piebald morph is reported — a clean blue-male / yellow-female dichromatism.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Pombo Rocks population

Maylandia sp. "Msobo" "Pombo Rocks" is the Pombo Rocks population of Maylandia sp. "Msobo", 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. "Msobo", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Pombo Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia staufferi — sold across the hobby simply as the 'Msobo Magunga' — is a small rock-dwelling cichlid (mbuna) from the north-eastern, Tanzanian shore of Lake Malawi. It spent decades as one of the lake's best-known undescribed fishes — there is no such binomial as 'Maylandia msobo' — until Ad Konings described it in 2026; Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes now treats the name as valid. Its appeal is a dramatic sexual dichromatism delivered with a twist — every juvenile and every adult female is a clean orange-yellow, while maturing males abandon that colour entirely and turn a dark, speckled blue-black, so that a tank of look-alike youngsters slowly resolves itself into two utterly different-looking sexes.

Full Maylandia staufferi account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia sp. "Msobo" "Pombo Rocks"
  2. malawi.si (Stuart Grant / M.K. Oliver database, Ad Konings) — Maylandia sp. 'msobo' Magunga (biotope, depth 7-25 m, distribution Cape Kaiser-Lundu, dimorphism, diet, generic placement)
  3. malawi.si — Maylandia sp. 'msobo' (genus index page; Pombo Rocks and other populations)
  4. malawi.si — Magunga location page, Lake Malawi, Tanzania (GPS center -12.06056, 34.593185)
  5. malawi.si — Maylandia sp. 'msobo heteropictus' Ndonga (southern sister form; distribution barrier Njambe-Lundu)
  6. malawi.si — Malawi Cichlid Species List (A-Z): Metriaclima sp. 'msobo' listed as an undescribed form
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