Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tramitichromis intermedius

Tramitichromis intermedius "Lion Point"

Lion Point — LY-uhn POYNT (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 intermedius account →

Specific to Lion Point

  • 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 intermedius.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.5 in14 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth0–33 ft0–10 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore (insect larvae and other soft invertebrates)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (polygynous, lek-spawning; males build and defend sand pits as spawning territories)not formally published; estimated a few dozen to ~80 eggs based on comparable sand-dwelling haplochromines [FLAGGED — unpublished]
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males develop a blue-grey body with dark scale edges and hold nuptial colour during the spawning season; females and non-breeding males are cryptically silvery and nearly identical to other sand-dwelling haplochromine females.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Lion Point population

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

Colour reference: living Lion Point fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tramitichromis intermedius is a quietly compelling haplochromine endemic to Lake Malawi, where it hugs the sediment-covered shallows of sheltered bays and quietly hoovers up the invertebrates buried beneath the sand. It belongs to a small, morphologically idiosyncratic genus whose members share an unusually angled lower pharyngeal bone — a dental geometry suited to crushing soft-bodied prey extracted from the upper few centimetres of lake-floor sediment. Where the peacocks of the genus Aulonocara use enlarged sensory pores to locate their prey, Tramitichromis intermedius tilts its snout into the substrate and sifts: a fish built for industrious, methodical foraging rather than sensory hovering. Despite living lake-wide, it has attracted less scientific attention than almost any other Malawi haplochromine of comparable size, and until the mid-1990s no one had ever recorded the living colours of an adult male.

Full Tramitichromis intermedius account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tramitichromis intermedius "Lion Point"
  2. FishBase — Tramitichromis intermedius (Trewavas, 1935)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Tramitichromis intermedius (species record; lectotype BMNH 1935.6.14.2081)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae p–y): Tramitichromis & T. intermedius etymology
  5. MalawiCichlids.com — Tramitichromis intermedius (M.K. Oliver; Konings 1995 field notes, taxonomy discussion)
  6. Ripley, J.L. & Lobel, P.S. — Reproductive behavior of the Lake Malawi cichlid fish, Tramitichromis intermedius (Environ. Biol. Fishes 73: 171–180, 2005)