Trematochromis benthicola "Chituta Bay"
Chituta Bay — chee-TOO-tah BAY (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 Trematochromis benthicola account →Specific to Chituta Bay
- 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 Trematochromis benthicola.
The Chituta Bay population
Trematochromis benthicola "Chituta Bay" is the Chituta Bay population of Trematochromis benthicola, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Trematochromis benthicola, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chituta Bay fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Trematochromis benthicola is a deep-bodied, secretive cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika that haunts the dark recesses of the lake's rocky slopes, where it ambushes the endemic shrimp it hunts partly by feel. Long shuffled among several genera and even briefly split into two "species," it is best known to science as a textbook case of convergent evolution: it independently arrived at almost the same body shape and shrimp-hunting niche as a completely unrelated lamprologine, Neolamprologus prochilus. It is a maternal mouthbrooder, rarely kept, and rated Least Concern despite a lake that is under real and growing strain.
Full Trematochromis benthicola account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Trematochromis benthicola "Chituta Bay"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Trematochromis schreyeni / benthicola entry
- FishBase — Trematochromis benthicola summary
- FishBase — Synonyms of Trematochromis benthicola
- Takahashi, Snoeks & Nakaya (2006) — Trematochromis schreyeni, a junior synonym of 'Ctenochromis' benthicola (Journal of Fish Biology)
- Takahashi, Snoeks & Nakaya (2006) — full PDF (Royal Museum for Central Africa)