Pseudotropheus purpuratus "Thumbi West Island"
Thumbi West Island — TOOM-bee WEST 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 Pseudotropheus purpuratus account →Specific to Thumbi West 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 Pseudotropheus purpuratus.
The Thumbi West Island population
Pseudotropheus purpuratus "Thumbi West Island" is the Thumbi West Island population of Pseudotropheus purpuratus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern 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 West Island 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 West Island"
- 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)