Otopharynx tetrastigma "Kanchedza Island"
Kanchedza Island — kahn-CHEH-dzah 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 Otopharynx tetrastigma account →Specific to Kanchedza 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 Otopharynx tetrastigma.
The Kanchedza Island population
Otopharynx tetrastigma "Kanchedza Island" is the Kanchedza Island population of Otopharynx tetrastigma, 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 tetrastigma, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Kanchedza Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Otopharynx tetrastigma is a non-mbuna haplochromine of Lake Malawi's intermediate rock-and-sand zone, named for a set of four dark marks on the flank — Greek tetra, "four," and stigma, "mark" or "spot" — a diagnostic pattern that distinguishes it from the lake's many superficially similar sand-associated haplochromines. It is documented from Kanchedza Island and Thumbi East Island, both within the cluster of small islands off Cape Maclear in the southern lake, a stretch of shoreline intensively surveyed since the earliest cichlid taxonomy of the lake.
Full Otopharynx tetrastigma account →