Protomelas dejunctus "Chinyankwazi Island"
Protomelas dejunctus (Chinyamwezi Island, Chinyankwazi Island)
Chinyankwazi Island — cheen-yahn-KWAH-zee 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 Protomelas dejunctus account →Specific to Chinyankwazi 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 Protomelas dejunctus.
The Chinyankwazi Island population
Protomelas dejunctus "Chinyankwazi Island" is the Chinyankwazi Island population of Protomelas dejunctus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Protomelas dejunctus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chinyankwazi Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Protomelas dejunctus is a member of one of Lake Malawi's most aquarium-famous haplochromine genera, home to showy sand-dwelling species such as the Red Empress. This particular species is far less documented than its flashier congeners, known from two neighbouring islands in the southern lake, Chinyamwezi and Chinyankwazi, and it illustrates a common pattern in Malawi cichlid taxonomy: a valid, distinct species that has simply never attracted the same descriptive or hobby attention as its better-known relatives.
Full Protomelas dejunctus account →