Melanochromis mpoto "Chilumba"
Melanochromis mpoto (Chilumba, Chitande Island, Kakusa, Katale Island, Mphanga Rocks, Ruarwe)
Chilumba — chee-LOOM-bah (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 Melanochromis mpoto account →Specific to Chilumba
- 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 Melanochromis mpoto.
The Chilumba population
Melanochromis mpoto "Chilumba" is the Chilumba population of Melanochromis mpoto, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Melanochromis mpoto, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chilumba fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Melanochromis mpoto is a deeper-living rock cichlid endemic to the northern end of Lake Malawi, described only in 2012 after spending decades in the literature as the unnamed "Melanochromis blue." It is the quiet predator of its genus: drab brown females and barred subadults give way to plain sky-blue breeding males, and adults switch from a solitary life to fast-moving hunting packs whenever a chance at prey appears. Most of its range sits at 65–130 ft (66–131 ft), well below the shallow algae gardens where the more familiar mbuna graze.
Full Melanochromis mpoto account →Sources
- malawi.si — Melanochromis mpoto "Chilumba"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Melanochromis mpoto
- FishBase: Melanochromis mpoto summary
- FishBase reference 89864: Konings & Stauffer (2012), Review of the Lake Malawi genus Melanochromis
- Konings & Stauffer (2012), Review of the Lake Malawi genus Melanochromis (Teleostei: Cichlidae), Zootaxa 3258 (ResearchGate)
- FishBase country checklist: fishes reported from Malawi (records M. mpoto as native)
- IUCN Red List — Melanochromis mpoto "Chilumba"