Neolamprologus brevis "Cape Kabogo"Brevis shell-dweller
Neolamprologus brevis (Bilila (Kavala) Island, Cape Bangwe, Cape Chaitika, Cape Kabogo, Cape Mpimbwe, Chimba, Congo, Ikola, Kapampa, Karilani Island, Kasongola, Kaswente Bay, Katabe Bay, Katete, Kigoma, Kiku, Kitumba, Livua, Mtoto, Mzwema, Namansi, Nkondwe Island, Sibwesa, Sumbu, Tembwe (Deux), Tongwa, Ulwile Island)
Cape Kabogo — KAYP kah-BOH-goh (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 brevis account →Specific to Cape Kabogo
- 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 brevis.
The Cape Kabogo population
Neolamprologus brevis "Cape Kabogo" is the Cape Kabogo population of Neolamprologus brevis, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus brevis, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Cape Kabogo fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus brevis is a dwarf shell-dwelling cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, a stocky, frog-faced fish that spends its entire life tethered to a single empty snail shell on the lake's sandy floor. What sets it apart from the lake's other "shellies" is a quirk of domestic arrangement: a male and female commonly share one shell, a near-unique pairing among Tanganyikan shell-brooders that lets the species colonize bare stretches of sand where shells are too sparse for its harem-forming relatives. Barely two inches long but ferociously territorial within the few inches around its shell, it is one of the most popular small cichlids in the hobby and one of the better-studied examples of how reproductive strategy bends to fit available real estate.
Full Neolamprologus brevis account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus brevis "Cape Kabogo"
- FishBase — Neolamprologus brevis (Boulenger, 1899) summary
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — species record (Neolamprologus brevis)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — California Academy of Sciences
- Ota, Aibara, Morita, Awata, Hori & Kohda (2012) — Alternative Reproductive Tactics in the Shell-Brooding Lake Tanganyika Cichlid Neolamprologus brevis, Int. J. Evol. Biol.
- IUCN Red List — Neolamprologus brevis "Cape Kabogo"