Neolamprologus mondabu "Katonga"
Katonga — kah-TOHN-gah (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 mondabu account →Specific to Katonga
- 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 mondabu.
The Katonga population
Neolamprologus mondabu "Katonga" is the Katonga population of Neolamprologus mondabu, 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 mondabu, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Katonga fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus mondabu is a small, robust lamprologine cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it ranks among the most common and widely distributed fishes along the rocky and sandy shallows of the northern and central lake. A generalist carnivore that picks invertebrates and snails from the substrate, it is best known to biologists for a quirk of timing: like a handful of its rift-lake relatives, it synchronizes spawning with the lunar cycle, and females that hold territories out on open sand raise more young than those wedged among the rocks. Despite its abundance, the fish is something of a wallflower in the aquarium trade, overshadowed by flashier Tanganyikans and easily confused with its southern counterpart, Neolamprologus modestus.
Full Neolamprologus mondabu account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus mondabu "Katonga"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Neolamprologus mondabu
- FishBase: Neolamprologus mondabu
- Takemon & Nakanishi (1998), Reproductive success in female Neolamprologus mondabu: influence of substrate types, Environmental Biology of Fishes 52:261-269
- Sefc (2011), Mating and Parental Care in Lake Tanganyika's Cichlids, Int. J. Evol. Biol.