Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Neolamprologus cancellatus

Neolamprologus cancellatus "Wonzye Point"

Wonzye Point — WOHN-zyeh POYNT (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 cancellatus account →

Specific to Wonzye Point

  • 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 cancellatus.

IUCNDATA DEFICIENT · 2025
DDnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size2.2 in5.7 cm standard length
Temperature75–81 °F24–27 °C
pH8–9alkaline
Depth7–23 ft2–7 m
DietPresumed micro-carnivore (small invertebrates/zooplankton); wild diet undescribed
BreedingPresumed shell (cave) brooder; biology undocumentedUnknown — no published egg or clutch data
Sexual dimorphismYesMales larger (~5.7 cm SL) than females (~4.6 cm SL); finer dimorphism poorly documented given how little field data exist.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Wonzye Point population

Neolamprologus cancellatus "Wonzye Point" is the Wonzye Point population of Neolamprologus cancellatus, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus cancellatus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Wonzye Point fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Neolamprologus cancellatus is a slender, grid-patterned cichlid known with certainty only from a single rocky point on the Zambian shore of Lake Tanganyika — and one of the more taxonomically curious fishes in the lake. Formally described in 2005 from eight specimens at Wonzye Point, it has long been suspected by field workers, including Ad Konings, of not being a 'good' species at all but a natural hybrid between the egg-robbing shell-dweller 'Lamprologus' callipterus and the small rock cichlid Telmatochromis vittatus. To aquarists it is the 'cuckoo' or 'eye-biter' shelldweller, a fish whose validity is genuinely unsettled and whose biology is still largely unknown.

Full Neolamprologus cancellatus account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus cancellatus "Wonzye Point"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — cancellatus, Neolamprologus Aibara, Takahashi & Nakaya 2005 (current status valid; note on possible callipterus × vittatus hybrid origin; type data)
  3. FishBase — Neolamprologus cancellatus Aibara, Takahashi & Nakaya 2005 (diagnosis, meristics, size, depth, Wonzye Point distribution)
  4. Aibara, M., Takahashi, T. & Nakaya, K., 2005 — 'Neolamprologus cancellatus, a new cichlid fish from Lake Tanganyika, Africa' (Ichthyological Research 52(4): 354–359) — original description
  5. Konings, A., 2015/2019 — Tanganyika Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (regards cancellatus as a possible callipterus × Telmatochromis vittatus hybrid)
  6. Catalogue of Life — Neolamprologus cancellatus Aibara, Takahashi & Nakaya, 2005