Neolamprologus petricola "Mtoto"
Mtoto — m-TOH-toh (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 petricola account →Specific to Mtoto
- 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 petricola.
The Mtoto population
Neolamprologus petricola "Mtoto" is the Mtoto population of Neolamprologus petricola, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus petricola, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mtoto fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus petricola is a rock-dwelling cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, described by Max Poll in 1949 from M'Toto Bay on the lake's western shore. A stocky, cream-to-brown lamprologine of around 5 in (12-14 cm), it is one of the lake's many cave-spawning rock specialists — and one of its taxonomic puzzles, since at least one authority folds it into the closely similar Neolamprologus modestus. It reaches the aquarium trade only sporadically, but it offers a clean window into how Tanganyika's rocky littoral works.
Full Neolamprologus petricola account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus petricola "Mtoto"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Neolamprologus petricola (Poll 1949)
- FishBase: Neolamprologus petricola summary
- GBIF: Neolamprologus petricola occurrence records
- iNaturalist: Neolamprologus petricola taxon page
- O'Reilly et al. (2003), Climate change decreases aquatic ecosystem productivity of Lake Tanganyika, Nature