Rhamphochromis esox "Gome"
Rhamphochromis esox (Gome, Narungu, Taiwanee Reef)
Gome — GOH-meh (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 Rhamphochromis esox account →Specific to Gome
- 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 Rhamphochromis esox.
The Gome population
Rhamphochromis esox "Gome" is the Gome population of Rhamphochromis esox, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Rhamphochromis esox, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Gome fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Rhamphochromis esox is the streamlined, fish-eating cichlid that hobbyists nickname the "Malawi barracuda" and Malawian fishers call mcheni. Endemic to Lake Malawi, it is the most distinctive and easily recognized member of a notoriously confusing genus of open-water predators, built like a torpedo around a long jaw full of teeth. While most of its relatives stalk the dim offshore depths, Rhamphochromis esox hunts in shallow, near-surface water, which puts an otherwise lake-wide and abundant fish squarely in the path of the inshore fishery that has driven its numbers down.
Full Rhamphochromis esox account →Sources
- malawi.si — Rhamphochromis esox "Gome"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Rhamphochromis esox (species record)
- FishBase: Rhamphochromis esox (Boulenger, 1908)
- iNaturalist taxon: Rhamphochromis esox
- Ngwira (2021), GRÓ Fisheries Training Programme: aquaculture potential of Rhamphochromis (ecology, maturity, fecundity, breeding)
- Turner, Robinson, Shaw & Carvalho (2004): Identification and biology of Diplotaxodon, Rhamphochromis and Pallidochromis (genus revision, via Catalog of Fishes references)
- IUCN Red List — Rhamphochromis esox "Gome"