Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Placidochromis hennydaviesae

Placidochromis hennydaviesae "Monkey Bay"

Monkey Bay — MUNK-ee 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 Placidochromis hennydaviesae account →

Specific to Monkey 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 Placidochromis hennydaviesae.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.9 in10 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth233–328 ft71–100 m
DietSmall benthopelagic carnivore/omnivore — planktonic invertebrates plus insect larvae taken from the sediment
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (inferred from the Lake Malawi haplochromine flock; not directly documented)Unrecorded for this species
Sexual dimorphismNot documentedNot documented; most Malawi haps are dimorphic in male breeding colour, but life colour of this deep-water species is poorly recorded.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Monkey Bay population

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

Colour reference: living Monkey Bay fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Placidochromis hennydaviesae is a small, deep-living haplochromine cichlid endemic to the southern reaches of Lake Malawi, where it haunts soft, sediment-floored bottoms well below the depths most aquarists or divers ever see. Described in 1973 from a single specimen dredged off Monkey Bay, it is one of the lake's many 'sand-dwelling hap' species, a fish of muddy plains rather than the colourful rock reefs that make Malawi famous. It feeds by sifting plankton and insect larvae from a floor blanketed in diatom ooze, and remains poorly known biologically despite its formal place in the catalogue.

Full Placidochromis hennydaviesae account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Placidochromis hennydaviesae "Monkey Bay"
  2. FishBase — Placidochromis hennydaviesae (Burgess & Axelrod, 1973)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Haplochromis hennydaviesae / Placidochromis hennydaviesae (species record; authorship, type data, holotype USNM 210698)
  4. Burgess, W.E. & H.R. Axelrod, 1973 — Original description, Haplochromis hennydaviesae (Tropical Fish Hobbyist v. 22, no. 2:91, fig. 5)
  5. Eccles, D.H. & E. Trewavas, 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: A Classification of Some Haplochromine Genera (erection of Placidochromis; transfer of this species)
  6. Hanssens, M., 2004 — The deep-water Placidochromis species, in Snoeks (ed.), The Cichlid Diversity of Lake Malawi/Nyasa/Niassa (Cichlid Press)