Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe" "Mbowe Island"
Mbowe Island — m-BOH-weh 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 sp. "Zebra Mbowe" account →Specific to Mbowe 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 sp. "Zebra Mbowe".
The Mbowe Island population
Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe" "Mbowe Island" is the Mbowe Island population of Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mbowe Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe" is a zebra-type mbuna recorded at Mbowe Island, on the northern Malawian shore of Lake Malawi. It resembles the well-known described species Maylandia zebra closely enough to be called by that name in the trade, but it is listed here as an undescribed "sp." form rather than as a confirmed locality population of true M. zebra, in keeping with the common hobby and field practice of holding zebra-pattern populations open pending closer comparison. It has no describing author, no FishBase record, and no IUCN assessment.
Full Maylandia sp. "Zebra Mbowe" account →