Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Petrotilapia flaviventris

Petrotilapia flaviventris "Chiteko"

Chiteko — chee-TEH-koh (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 flaviventris account →

Specific to Chiteko

  • 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 flaviventris.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.4 in11.1 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth16–66 ft5–20 m
DietCombs aufwuchs (algae & micro-invertebrates) from rock
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~20–40 eggs (genus-typical)
Sexual dimorphismYesMales blue-bodied with yellow belly, throat and lower flanks (some populations near-entirely yellow); females and non-dominant fish yellow-brown with dark interrupted stripes.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiteko population

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

Colour reference: living Chiteko fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Petrotilapia flaviventris is a rock-grazing mbuna cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, described only in 2011 from Chizumulu Island. Like all members of its genus, it wears a set of broad, fleshy, tooth-studded lips that it presses against algae-covered rock to comb out diatoms and loose filaments. The species takes its name from the egg-yolk yellow that floods the belly, throat, and lower flanks of breeding males, a feature that earned it the informal hobby tag "yellow ventral" before it had a formal name.

Full Petrotilapia flaviventris account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Petrotilapia flaviventris "Chiteko"
  2. Petrotilapia flaviventris — FishBase summary
  3. Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer/CAS) — Petrotilapia flaviventris
  4. EOL — Petrotilapia flaviventris Lundeba, Stauffer & Konings 2011
  5. Lundeba, Stauffer & Konings (2011), Five new species of the genus Petrotilapia, Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 22(2):149–168
  6. Ribbink et al. (1983), A preliminary survey of the cichlid fishes of rocky habitats in Lake Malawi, S. Afr. J. Zool. 18:149–310 (genus ecology, cited in IUCN)