Nyassachromis microcephalus "Otter Point"
Otter Point — OT-ter POYNT (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 Nyassachromis microcephalus account →Specific to Otter Point
- 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 Nyassachromis microcephalus.
The Otter Point population
Nyassachromis microcephalus "Otter Point" is the Otter Point population of Nyassachromis microcephalus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Nyassachromis microcephalus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Otter Point fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Nyassachromis microcephalus is a small, short-headed sand cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, described by Ethelwynn Trewavas in 1935 from Monkey Bay. One of the smaller members of its genus, it lives over open sandy shallows and feeds on plankton in midwater, forming small schools. Like its relatives it is a sand bower-builder: breeding males heap up a sand turret topped by a distinctly slanted spawning dish, a structure close to that of Nyassachromis purpurans. With an apparently lake-wide distribution and a healthy presence on suitable sand, it is rated Least Concern by the IUCN.
Full Nyassachromis microcephalus account →Sources
- malawi.si — Nyassachromis microcephalus "Otter Point"
- FishBase — Nyassachromis microcephalus (Trewavas, 1935)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Nyassachromis microcephalus (species record; Monkey Bay type locality, valid name)
- Trewavas, E., 1935 — A synopsis of the cichlid fishes of Lake Nyasa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Series 10) 16(91): 65–118 (original description, Haplochromis microcephalus)
- Eccles, D. H. & E. Trewavas, 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: a classification of some Haplochromine genera (Nyassachromis erected; microcephalus placed here)
- The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae l–o): Nyassachromis microcephalus etymology (micro- + -cephalus, 'small head')