Pseudotropheus purpuratus "Thumbi Reef"
Thumbi Reef — TOOM-bee REEF (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 purpuratus account →Specific to Thumbi Reef
- 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 purpuratus.
The Thumbi Reef population
Pseudotropheus purpuratus "Thumbi Reef" is the Thumbi Reef population of Pseudotropheus purpuratus, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Malawi in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Pseudotropheus purpuratus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Thumbi Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Pseudotropheus purpuratus is a small, fiercely territorial mbuna endemic to Lake Malawi, where blue males and brown, barred females patrol shallow rocky shores and tend defended mats of algae. Long known to aquarists and field workers under the cheironym "Aggressive Blue" before it was formally named, it earns the label honestly: both sexes hold feeding territories year-round and drive off intruders many times their size. It belongs to a slender, long-snouted lineage of mbuna sometimes nicknamed the "dolphin" group, and it is a maternal mouthbrooder that spawns in caves among the rocks.
Full Pseudotropheus purpuratus account →Sources
- malawi.si — Pseudotropheus purpuratus "Thumbi Reef"
- Pseudotropheus purpuratus — FishBase summary
- Pseudotropheus purpuratus — FishBase (Malawi country record)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (California Academy of Sciences)
- Johnson, D.S. 1976. Two new cichlids of the Mbuna group from Malawi. Today's Aquarist 2(3):17-24 (original description; cited via CRC bibliography)
- Leibel, W. 'Cichlidophiles — Pseudotropheus purpuratus, the Aggressive Blue Mbuna from Lake Malawi.' Tropical Fish Hobbyist 53(5):44-47 (indexed via CRC)