Perissodus straeleni "Musofwe Bay"
Perissodus straeleni (Chituta Bay, Kambwimba, Kampemba Point, Kasanga, Lupita Island, Lyamembe, Magara, Musofwe Bay, Nausigili Island, Ulwile Island)
Musofwe Bay — moo-SOH-fweh BAY (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 Perissodus straeleni account →Specific to Musofwe Bay
- 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 Perissodus straeleni.
The Musofwe Bay population
Perissodus straeleni "Musofwe Bay" is the Musofwe Bay population of Perissodus straeleni, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Perissodus straeleni, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Musofwe Bay fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Perissodus straeleni is a scale-eating cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, one of a handful of fish on Earth that make a living tearing the scales off other living fish. Banded blue-and-black like the lake's big-headed Cyphotilapia, it has long been cast as a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' that mimics a harmless neighbor to slip within striking range of its prey. Modern DNA work on its gut contents has complicated that tidy story, showing it raids dozens of species rather than the one it supposedly imitates. Today the taxonomic authorities place it in the genus Perissodus, though the hobby and much of the literature still know it as Plecodus.
Full Perissodus straeleni account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Perissodus straeleni "Musofwe Bay"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: species 'straeleni, Plecodus' (current status Perissodus straeleni)
- FishBase: Plecodus straeleni Poll, 1948
- GBIF: Plecodus straeleni Poll, 1948
- Boileau et al. 2015, 'A complex mode of aggressive mimicry in a scale-eating cichlid fish', Biology Letters 11:20150521
- Nshombo 1994, 'Foraging behavior of the scale-eater Plecodus straeleni in Lake Tanganyika', Environmental Biology of Fishes 39:59-72
- IUCN Red List — Perissodus straeleni "Musofwe Bay"