Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Petrotilapia palingnathos

Petrotilapia palingnathos "Chiwi Rocks"

Chiwi Rocks — CHEE-wee ROKS (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 palingnathos account →

Specific to Chiwi Rocks

  • 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 palingnathos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.6 in11.8 cm standard length
Temperature73–82 °F23–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth0–49 ft0–15 m
DietCombs aufwuchs (attached algae, diatoms and associated invertebrates) from rock surfaces; grazing omnivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (spawns in caves)~20-40 eggs (genus-typical; not individually documented)
Sexual dimorphismYesMales dark gray with orange markings, blue-outlined scales, orange cheek and blue throat; females orange-brown with ~8 dark-brown vertical bars. Both sexes share the uniquely retrognathous jaw and lack a dark dorsal-fin submarginal band.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiwi Rocks population

Petrotilapia palingnathos "Chiwi Rocks" is the Chiwi Rocks population of Petrotilapia palingnathos, 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 palingnathos, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Chiwi Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Petrotilapia palingnathos is a rock-dwelling mbuna endemic to Lake Malawi, where it grazes the algal felt from sunlit boulders in the calm, shallow water around Chizumulu Island. It is the odd one out of its genus: alone among Petrotilapia it has a distinctly retrognathous mouth — a markedly short, under-tucked lower jaw — and that single trait, captured in its name (Greek for 'jaw set back'), separates it from every other member of the genus at a glance. Described in 2011 by Lundeba, Stauffer and Konings, it is a thick-lipped, tricuspid-toothed aufwuchs specialist of the kind that gives Malawi's rocky shores their dense, color-coded cichlid communities.

Full Petrotilapia palingnathos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Petrotilapia palingnathos "Chiwi Rocks"
  2. Petrotilapia palingnathos — FishBase species summary (SpecCode 66137)
  3. Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, CAS) — Petrotilapia palingnathos (Lundeba, Stauffer & Konings 2011; type locality, valid name)
  4. Lundeba, M., J. R. Stauffer & A. F. Konings, 2011 — Five new species of the genus Petrotilapia (Teleostei: Cichlidae), from Lake Malawi, Africa (original description). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters 22(2):149–168 (PDF)
  5. Konings, A., 2016 — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (5th ed.), Petrotilapia account (validity reference cited by Catalog of Fishes)
  6. Ruffing, R., A. Lambert & J. R. Stauffer, 2006 — Description of Petrotilapia microgalana, with morphometric comparisons across the genus (PDF)