Neolamprologus timidus "Ulwile Island"
Ulwile Island — oo-LWEE-leh EYE-land (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 timidus account →Specific to Ulwile Island
- 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 timidus.
The Ulwile Island population
Neolamprologus timidus "Ulwile Island" is the Ulwile Island population of Neolamprologus timidus, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Neolamprologus timidus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Ulwile Island fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus timidus is a slender, dark-bodied Tanganyikan cichlid that spent decades hiding in plain sight, lumped together with its near-twin Neolamprologus furcifer until a 2014 study teased the two apart. Endemic to a roughly 100 km stretch of the Tanzanian coast, it lives pressed against the undersides of boulders and the back walls of deep caves, often hanging belly-to-rock with its head pointing down. Its name, Latin for "shy," captures exactly how it behaves: large-eyed, secretive, and gone in a flash the moment a diver draws near.
Full Neolamprologus timidus account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Neolamprologus timidus "Ulwile Island"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Neolamprologus timidus (Catalog of Fishes, CAS)
- Neolamprologus timidus - FishBase summary page
- Neolamprologus timidus - GBIF species record
- Cloffa / Faunafri: Neolamprologus timidus Kullander et al., 2014
- Kullander, Norén, Karlsson & Karlsson (2014): Description of Neolamprologus timidus, new species, and review of N. furcifer (Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters 24(4):301-328, PDF)