Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Mylochromis sphaerodon

Mylochromis sphaerodon "Chiofu"

Chiofu — chee-OH-foo (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 sphaerodon account →

Specific to Chiofu

  • 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 sphaerodon.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size7.9 in20 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth16–66 ft5–20 m
DietSpecialized gastropod molluscivore; crushes snails with spherical molariform pharyngeal teeth
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~20–60 eggs (genus-typical estimate; no published count for this species)
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males develop blue body coloration with a yellow anal fin; females and non-breeding males are plain olivaceous-tan with the oblique diagonal stripe.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiofu population

Mylochromis sphaerodon "Chiofu" is the Chiofu population of Mylochromis sphaerodon, 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 sphaerodon, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chiofu fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Mylochromis sphaerodon, the roundtooth hap, is a deep-bodied haplochromine cichlid endemic to the southern half of Lake Malawi, where it forages along sandy inshore shallows for gastropods and other invertebrates. What makes it unusual within an already specialist group is in its teeth: the middle pharyngeal teeth carry spherical, ball-like crowns — the feature that gives the fish its name and powers a snail-crushing bite that few of its congeners can match. Rarely seen in aquaria and more often collected for the local subsistence fishery, it is one of the lake's quieter haplochromines, widespread but seldom the centre of attention.

Full Mylochromis sphaerodon account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Mylochromis sphaerodon "Chiofu"
  2. FishBase: Mylochromis sphaerodon (Regan, 1922) — Roundtooth hap
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: sphaerodon, Haplochromis Regan 1922 (species record)
  4. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy: Mylochromis sphaerodon (Regan, 1922) — taxon key 2372200
  5. The ETYFish Project — Family CICHLIDAE: Subfamily PSEUDOCRENILABRINAE (l–o): Mylochromis etymology
  6. Regan, C.T. 1922. The Cichlid Fishes of Lake Nyassa. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1921 (pt 4): 675–727