Spathodus marlieri "Mwamgongo" is the Mwamgongo population of Spathodus marlieri, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Spathodus marlieri, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Mwamgongo fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Spathodus marlieri is the largest of Lake Tanganyika's goby cichlids — the squat, blunt-faced little fish hobbyists call "Tanganyika clowns" — and the odd one out of the group in more ways than its size. Endemic to the lake's northern shores, it lives jammed into the surf-battered rock just below the waterline, grazing the algal film with a slightly reduced swimbladder that keeps it pinned to the bottom. Most strikingly, while its cousins are famously biparental mouthbrooders that pass the brood from female to male, Spathodus marlieri abandoned that arrangement entirely and broods maternally, like most other African cichlids.

Full Spathodus marlieri account →

Sources

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