Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Placidochromis longimanus

Placidochromis longimanus "Thumbi East Island"

Thumbi East Island — TOOM-bee EEST 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 Placidochromis longimanus account →

Specific to Thumbi East 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 Placidochromis longimanus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.7 in14.5 cm total length
Temperature73–82 °F23–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth16–49 ft5–15 m
DietLargely herbivorous/detritivorous — feeds on sediment, algae and detritus among weed beds; long gut and low trophic level (~2.0)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (Lake Malawi haplochromine; mode certain, details not documented)Unrecorded for this species
Sexual dimorphismNot documentedNot well documented; as in most Malawi haps, breeding males are likely the more strongly coloured sex.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Thumbi East Island population

Placidochromis longimanus "Thumbi East Island" is the Thumbi East Island population of Placidochromis longimanus, 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 longimanus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Thumbi East Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Placidochromis longimanus is a medium-small haplochromine cichlid of the southern Lake Malawi system, found in the south end of the lake, in Lake Malombe and in the upper Shire River. Unlike the deep-water members of its genus, it is a shallow-water plant specialist, living among the floating beds of rootless weeds such as hornwort and naiad at around ten metres' depth. Its long gut hints at a largely vegetarian diet of the fine material that settles among the weeds, and it is one of the older-named species of the genus, described by Ethelwynn Trewavas back in 1935.

Full Placidochromis longimanus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Placidochromis longimanus "Thumbi East Island"
  2. FishBase — Placidochromis longimanus (Trewavas, 1935)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Haplochromis longimanus / Placidochromis longimanus (species record; authorship, type data, distribution)
  4. Trewavas, E., 1935 — A synopsis of the cichlid fishes of Lake Nyasa (original description of Haplochromis longimanus)
  5. Eccles, D.H. & E. Trewavas, 1989 — Malawian Cichlid Fishes: A Classification of Some Haplochromine Genera (erection of Placidochromis; transfer of this species)
  6. Maréchal, C., 1991 — Placidochromis, in Check-list of the Freshwater Fishes of Africa (CLOFFA), vol. 4