Neolamprologus cunningtoni "Cape Chaitika"
Neolamprologus cunningtoni (Cape Chaitika, Chituta Bay, Jakobsen's Beach, Kalambo Lodge, Kanoni, Kigoma, Kungwe Point, Mbita Island)
Cape Chaitika — KAYP chah-ee-TEE-kah (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 cunningtoni account →Specific to Cape Chaitika
- 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 cunningtoni.
The Cape Chaitika population
Neolamprologus cunningtoni "Cape Chaitika" is the Cape Chaitika population of Neolamprologus cunningtoni, 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 cunningtoni, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Cape Chaitika fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus cunningtoni is a large, sand-cruising predatory cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it patrols the open margins between rock and sand hunting smaller fish. Among the most elongate and heavily built of the lake's lamprologines, it is one of the biggest members of the tribe, with males approaching a foot in length. It is common in the wild but uncommon in aquaria, partly because it grows too large and too plainly colored to tempt most keepers, and partly because of a long-running taxonomic tug-of-war over which genus it actually belongs to.
Full Neolamprologus cunningtoni account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus cunningtoni "Cape Chaitika"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — cunningtoni, Lamprologus (Boulenger 1906)
- FishBase — Neolamprologus cunningtoni summary
- GBIF — Lepidiolamprologus cunningtoni (Boulenger, 1906)
- Stiassny (1997) — A Phylogenetic Overview of the Lamprologine Cichlids of Africa, S. Afr. J. Sci. 93:513–523
- Evolutionary history of the Lake Tanganyika cichlid tribe Lamprologini (Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.)
- IUCN Red List — Neolamprologus cunningtoni "Cape Chaitika"