Tramitichromis brevis "Chizumulu Island"
Chizumulu Island — chee-zoo-MOO-loo 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 Tramitichromis brevis account →Specific to Chizumulu 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 Tramitichromis brevis.
The Chizumulu Island population
Tramitichromis brevis "Chizumulu Island" is the Chizumulu Island population of Tramitichromis brevis, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Tramitichromis brevis, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chizumulu Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Tramitichromis brevis is a sand-sifting cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, where it works the lake's soft inshore floor for the small invertebrates buried in mud and sand. Unspectacular at a glance, it is a precision feeder: it takes mouthfuls of sediment, sorts the edible from the inert against a specialized grid of gill rakers and pharyngeal teeth, and spits the sand back out. Breeding males trade that quiet life for a brief, conspicuous one, building sand bowers to court passing females before the females carry the eggs away in their mouths. The trade still moves it under the old, wrong name 'Lethrinops variabilis.'
Full Tramitichromis brevis account →Sources
- malawi.si — Tramitichromis brevis "Chizumulu Island"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Tramitichromis brevis (Boulenger 1908)
- FishBase — Tramitichromis brevis summary
- FishBase — Tramitichromis brevis species summary (ID 2252)
- Chavula et al. 2023, Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: Status, challenges, and research needs (J. Great Lakes Res. 49(6):102241)
- Chavula et al. 2023 — basin review (ResearchGate copy)