Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Mylochromis anaphyrmus

Mylochromis anaphyrmus "Malopa"

Malopa — mah-LOH-pah (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 Mylochromis anaphyrmus account →

Specific to Malopa

  • 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 Mylochromis anaphyrmus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size9.1 in23 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth33–236 ft10–72 m
DietMolluscivore — crushes freshwater gastropods with molariform pharyngeal teeth
BreedingMaternal (ovophilous) mouthbrooder; polygynous, no pair bondNot formally published for this species; genus-typical for a ~15 cm female is estimated ~20–50 eggs (inferred from congeners — not a measured datum)
Sexual dimorphismYesMales markedly larger (to 23 cm) than females (to 15 cm); breeding males develop blue-silver nuptial coloration while females and non-breeding males are cryptic brownish-silver with the oblique dark band more prominent.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Malopa population

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

Colour reference: living Malopa fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Mylochromis anaphyrmus is a sand-dwelling haplochromine cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, built around one of the most specialised diets in the lake's species flock: it excavates snails from silty sand with a set of flattened, molariform pharyngeal teeth that function like a pair of nutcrackers. Reaching around 23 cm in males, it is a stocky, subdued fish of the deeper sandy intermediate zone — barely traded, rarely seen in aquaria, but a key invertivore in the lake's benthic food web. The genus name it now carries, Mylochromis, was itself once disputed; the fish spent decades filed under the synonym Maravichromis before that name was formally sunk.

Full Mylochromis anaphyrmus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Mylochromis anaphyrmus "Malopa"
  2. FishBase — Mylochromis anaphyrmus (Burgess & Axelrod, 1973)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Mylochromis anaphyrmus (species record; holotype USNM 210699)
  4. GBIF — Mylochromis anaphyrmus (Burgess & Axelrod, 1973); taxon key 2372244
  5. Burgess, W.E. & Axelrod, H.R. (1973) — New cichlids from Lake Malawi. Tropical Fish Hobbyist 22(2): 87–98 [original description]
  6. Derijst, E. & Snoeks, J. (1992) — Maravichromis Eccles & Trewavas, 1989, a junior synonym of Mylochromis Regan, 1920 (Teleostei, Cichlidae). Cybium 16(2):173