Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Petrotilapia sp. "Yellow Chin"

Petrotilapia sp. "Yellow Chin" "Mbenji Island"

Mbenji Island — m-BEHN-jee 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 sp. "Yellow Chin" account →

Specific to Mbenji 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 sp. "Yellow Chin".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5 in13 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth7–49 ft2–15 m
DietSpecialised algae grazer, dense rows of multi-cusped teeth scrape aufwuchs from wave-washed rock
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; expected modest, a few dozen eggs, by analogy with similarly sized Petrotilapia
Sexual dimorphismYesTrade name indicates a yellow chin/lower-jaw marking; Petrotilapia populations often contain several coexisting male colour morphs, so a single simple description likely understates real variation.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Mbenji Island population

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

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

About the species

Petrotilapia sp. "Yellow Chin" is an undescribed mbuna from the south-central part of Lake Malawi, belonging to a genus of large, heavily built algae grazers known in the hobby simply as "petros." Petrotilapia is notorious among Lake Malawi taxonomists for a level of within-population male colour variation unusual even by mbuna standards, which is a large part of why so many of its populations remain informal trade forms rather than described species; this "Yellow Chin" form is one of them, named for a yellow marking reported on the lower jaw. It carries no authority, no publication year, no FishBase number, and no IUCN assessment.

Full Petrotilapia sp. "Yellow Chin" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Petrotilapia sp. "Yellow Chin" "Mbenji Island"
  2. malawi.si — Konings-based Lake Malawi cichlid species and locality database
  3. Cichlid Room Companion — Malawi cichlid genus and undescribed-form references (Ad Konings, curator)
  4. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)