Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Oreochromis shiranus

Oreochromis shiranus "Machili Island"

Machili Island — mah-CHEE-lee 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 Oreochromis shiranus account →

Specific to Machili 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 Oreochromis shiranus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size15.4 in39 cm standard length
Temperature64–86 °F18–30 °C
pH7–8.8alkaline
Depth0–5 ft0–1.5 m
DietOmnivore/detritivore (algae, detritus, invertebrates)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (males build bowers/lek)A maternal mouthbrooder carrying a brood of roughly several hundred to ~1,000+ eggs/young in the mouth (genus-typical for Oreochromis)
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males turn near-black with red fin margins, enlarged jaws and a dished head profile; females and juveniles olive to silvery
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Machili Island population

Oreochromis shiranus "Machili Island" is the Machili Island population of Oreochromis shiranus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Oreochromis shiranus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Machili Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Oreochromis shiranus, the Shire tilapia, is a large, vegetation-loving mouthbrooder of Lake Malawi and its surrounding rivers and satellite lakes. It is the lake's quiet workhorse cichlid: not a jewel-toned rock-dweller but a deep-bodied, olive-and-silver food fish that fishers and pond farmers across Malawi know far better than aquarists do. Its one reliable party trick is anatomical — it usually carries four anal-fin spines where almost every other cichlid in the lake has three, a tidy diagnostic that separates it at a glance from the chambo it is so often confused with.

Full Oreochromis shiranus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Oreochromis shiranus "Machili Island"
  2. Oreochromis shiranus — Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (CAS)
  3. Oreochromis shiranus, Shire tilapia — FishBase
  4. Oreochromis shiranus Boulenger, 1897 — GBIF
  5. Cichlids of Lake Malawi — The Cichlid Fishes (malawicichlids.com / Stuart Grant SI catalog)
  6. Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: Status, challenges, and research needs — Chavula et al. 2023, J. Great Lakes Research