Nimbochromis livingstonii "Lions Cove"Livingston's cichlid
Nimbochromis livingstonii (Border, Cape Kaiser, Chizumulu Island, Cobwe, Jalo Reef, Lions Cove, Magunga, Makokola Reef, Mara Rocks, Mazinzi Reef, Mbamba Islands, Membe Point, Usisya)
Lions Cove — LY-uhnz KOHV (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 Nimbochromis livingstonii account →Specific to Lions Cove
- 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 Nimbochromis livingstonii.
The Lions Cove population
Nimbochromis livingstonii "Lions Cove" is the Lions Cove population of Nimbochromis livingstonii, a geographic colour form from Lake Malawi in Lake Malawi part of the lake. It is the same species as Nimbochromis livingstonii, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Lions Cove fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Nimbochromis livingstonii, Livingston's cichlid, is a large, boldly blotched predatory haplochromine endemic to Lake Malawi, its outflowing upper Shire River, and Lake Malombe. It is the most famous of the Malawi 'haps' for one extraordinary trick: the fish lies on its side in the sediment, its mottled brown-and-cream pattern mimicking a rotting carcass, and waits — when a small cichlid swims in to scavenge the apparent corpse, the 'dead' predator lunges to life. Maltese-Malawian fishermen christened it kalingono, the 'sleeper,' long before science put a name to the behaviour, which biologists call death-feigning. Like all of its genus it is a maternal mouthbrooder, and it has been a staple of the larger-cichlid hobby for half a century.
Full Nimbochromis livingstonii account →Sources
- malawi.si — Nimbochromis livingstonii "Lions Cove"
- FishBase — Nimbochromis livingstonii (Günther, 1894)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Hemichromis livingstonii Günther 1894 (valid as Nimbochromis livingstonii)
- McKaye, K.R. 1981 — 'Field observation on death feigning: a unique hunting behavior by the predatory cichlid, Haplochromis livingstoni, of Lake Malawi' (Environmental Biology of Fishes 6: 361–365)
- malawi.si (Stuart M. Grant / M.K. Oliver database) — Nimbochromis livingstonii: biotope, breeding & 'kaligono' notes
- Eccles, D.H. & Trewavas, E. 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: A Classification of Some Haplochromine Genera (erection of Nimbochromis); via Catalog of Fishes
- IUCN Red List — Nimbochromis livingstonii "Lions Cove"