Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Otopharynx brooksi

Otopharynx brooksi "Makokola Reef"

Makokola Reef — mah-koh-KOH-lah REEF (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 Otopharynx brooksi account →

Specific to Makokola Reef

  • 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 Otopharynx brooksi.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.9 in15 cm total length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.5–8.5alkaline
Depth—not recorded
DietPiscivore — feeds on small fishes (FishBase)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (inferred from genus/flock; not directly documented for this species)Unrecorded for this species; haps of this size typically lay a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesMales larger and, like Malaŵi haps generally, more colourful when in breeding condition; females and non-territorial males plainer.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Makokola Reef population

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

Colour reference: living Makokola Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Otopharynx brooksi is a medium-sized haplochromine cichlid endemic to Lake Malaŵi, described in 1989 from Thumbi Island West near Cape Maclear in the lake's southwestern arm. Like its relatives it carries the diagnostic Otopharynx three-spot melanic pattern — a suprapectoral, a supra-anal and a caudal-peduncle blotch — and lives over sand near rocks, where it hunts small fishes. It is one of the species that ichthyologist Michael Oliver used to anchor the modern, restricted concept of the genus.

Full Otopharynx brooksi account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Otopharynx brooksi "Makokola Reef"
  2. FishBase — Otopharynx brooksi Oliver, 1989 (SpecCode 2201; size, distribution, biology)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Otopharynx brooksi (species record spid 61014; authorship, type locality)
  4. Eccles, D.H. & E. Trewavas, 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: the classification of some haplochromine genera (original account of Otopharynx; O. brooksi by M.K. Oliver)
  5. Oliver, M.K., 2018 — Six New Species of the Cichlid Genus Otopharynx from Lake Malaŵi (Teleostei: Cichlidae). Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History 59(2) (genus diagnosis; three-spot pattern; comparisons including O. brooksi)
  6. The ETYFish Project — Otopharynx (etymology of genus and species, including brooksi after J. L. Brooks)