Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Petrotilapia chrysos

Petrotilapia chrysos "Chinyamwezi Island"

Chinyamwezi Island — cheen-yahm-WEH-zee 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 Petrotilapia chrysos account →

Specific to Chinyamwezi 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 Petrotilapia chrysos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.2 in13.1 cm standard length
Temperature73–82 °F23–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth3–33 ft1–10 m
DietCombs aufwuchs from rock; also forages on plankton in the water column
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~20-40 eggs (genus-typical; not individually documented)
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong and status-linked: territorial males blue-black with 7-10 gray/brown bars, dark blue cheek and black throat; non-territorial males gold (the source of the name); females paler.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chinyamwezi Island population

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

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

About the species

Petrotilapia chrysos is a rock-dwelling mbuna endemic to a tiny corner of Lake Malawi — the islands of Chinyamwezi and Chinyankwazi in the lake's southeastern arm. Like all Petrotilapia it is a thick-lipped, tricuspid-toothed aufwuchs grazer that combs the algal felt from sunlit rock, but it is set apart by the gold cast of its non-territorial males, the trait that gave the species its name (Greek chrysos, 'gold'). Described by Stauffer and van Snik in 1996, it belongs to the dark, deeper-water 'Petrotilapia nigra group' and is one of the narrowest-range members of the genus.

Full Petrotilapia chrysos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Petrotilapia chrysos "Chinyamwezi Island"
  2. Petrotilapia chrysos — FishBase species summary (SpecCode 54241)
  3. Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, CAS) — Petrotilapia chrysos (Stauffer & van Snik 1996; type locality, valid name)
  4. Stauffer, J. R. & E. van Snik, 1996 — Description of a new species of Petrotilapia (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from Lake Malaŵi, Africa (original description). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters
  5. Lundeba, M., J. R. Stauffer & A. F. Konings, 2011 — Five new species of Petrotilapia, with the three habitat groups (P. nigra group context). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters 22(2):149-168 (PDF)
  6. GBIF — Petrotilapia chrysos Stauffer & van Snik, 1996