Neolamprologus bifasciatus "Southern Tanzania"
Southern Tanzania — soh-OO-tehrn tahn-zah-NEE-ah (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 Neolamprologus bifasciatus account →Specific to Southern Tanzania
- 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 Neolamprologus bifasciatus.
The Southern Tanzania population
Neolamprologus bifasciatus "Southern Tanzania" is the Southern Tanzania population of Neolamprologus bifasciatus, a geographic colour form from Lake Tanganyika in Lake Tanganyika part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus bifasciatus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Southern Tanzania fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus bifasciatus is a little-known lamprologine cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, living down at the dim margin where rocky reef gives way to open sand and mud, mostly between 100 and 150 ft (30-45 m). For decades it was written off as a solitary deep-water loner, but underwater video in the 2020s revealed something far more interesting: it is a cooperative breeder, with non-breeding subordinates that help guard the brood and tend the nest. That depth and that social system make it a genuine rarity in the aquarium trade rather than a tank staple.
Full Neolamprologus bifasciatus account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus bifasciatus "Southern Tanzania"
- Neolamprologus bifasciatus — FishBase summary
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (species record, via FishBase/CAS)
- Satoh, Saeki & Kohda 2022 — Cooperative breeding in Neolamprologus bifasciatus (Ecology of Freshwater Fish 31:640-649)
- Cooperative breeding in N. bifasciatus — record (FAO AGRIS)
- O'Reilly et al. 2003 — Climate change decreases productivity of Lake Tanganyika (Nature; PubMed)