Pseudosimochromis babaulti "Sibwesa"
Sibwesa — see-BWEH-sah (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 Pseudosimochromis babaulti account →Specific to Sibwesa
- 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 Pseudosimochromis babaulti.
The Sibwesa population
Pseudosimochromis babaulti "Sibwesa" is the Sibwesa population of Pseudosimochromis babaulti, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Pseudosimochromis babaulti, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Sibwesa fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Pseudosimochromis babaulti is a small, bar-flanked algae-grazing cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it works the sediment-dusted rocky shallows that ring all four of the lake's national shorelines. Long known to hobbyists as Simochromis babaulti, it is one of the smallest and toughest of the lake's rock-dwelling browsers, a maternal mouthbrooder with a Tropheus-like temperament packed into a 5-inch (12 cm) body. Its most quietly remarkable feature is the female, who can flick her dark barring on and off like a switch, and who absorbs the brood entirely within her own mouth.
Full Pseudosimochromis babaulti account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Pseudosimochromis babaulti "Sibwesa"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: babaulti, Simochromis (valid as Pseudosimochromis babaulti)
- FishBase: Pseudosimochromis babaulti (Pellegrin, 1927)
- FishBase: Tanganyika species ecology list (size, trophic level, endemism)
- Takahashi & Koblmüller 2011, The Adaptive Radiation of Cichlid Fish in Lake Tanganyika: A Morphological Perspective (Tropheini reclassification)
- Van Steenberge et al. 2015, Morphology, Molecules, and Monogenean Parasites: An Integrative Approach to Cichlid Biodiversity (PLoS ONE 10(4):e0124474)