Pseudotropheus perspicax "Mdoka"
Mdoka — m-DOH-kah (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 Pseudotropheus perspicax account →Specific to Mdoka
- 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 Pseudotropheus perspicax.
The Mdoka population
Pseudotropheus perspicax "Mdoka" is the Mdoka population of Pseudotropheus perspicax, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Pseudotropheus perspicax, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mdoka fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Pseudotropheus perspicax is a rock-dwelling mbuna known from a run of reefs along the west-central shore of Lake Malawi, roughly the stretch between Mdoka in the north and Mara Rocks in the south. Its Latin name, meaning sharp-sighted or keenly alert, points to a trait long noted in mbuna field surveys: this is a wary fish, quick to vanish into the rocks at the first sign of a diver or a predator. It belongs to a genus that has been whittled down repeatedly by taxonomic revision, as look-alike species were split off into Maylandia, Tropheops, Cynotilapia and Chindongo, leaving today's Pseudotropheus a smaller, tighter group than the catch-all genus aquarists knew a generation ago.
Full Pseudotropheus perspicax account →