Rhamphochromis lucius "Cape Maclear"
Rhamphochromis lucius (Cape Maclear, Otter Point, South East Arm)
Cape Maclear — kayp muh-KLEER (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 lucius account →Specific to Cape Maclear
- 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 lucius.
The Cape Maclear population
Rhamphochromis lucius "Cape Maclear" is the Cape Maclear population of Rhamphochromis lucius, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Rhamphochromis lucius, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Cape Maclear fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Rhamphochromis lucius is one of the pike-like open-water predators of Lake Malawi, its epithet borrowed directly from Esox lucius, the scientific name of the northern pike — the same naming trick used for its congener Rhamphochromis esox, whose epithet takes the pike's genus name instead. Both point to the same fact: this is a long, torpedo-shaped cichlid built to run down smaller fish in open water, one of several similar-looking Rhamphochromis species that Malawian fishers group together under the local name mcheni. Documented from the south-central lake around Cape Maclear and the South East Arm, it belongs to a genus notorious for how difficult its species are to tell apart in the field.
Full Rhamphochromis lucius account →