Trematocranus microstoma "Chembe Beach"
Chembe Beach — CHEHM-beh BEECH (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 Trematocranus microstoma account →Specific to Chembe Beach
- 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 Trematocranus microstoma.
The Chembe Beach population
Trematocranus microstoma "Chembe Beach" is the Chembe Beach population of Trematocranus microstoma, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Trematocranus microstoma, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chembe Beach fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Trematocranus microstoma is a small haplochromine cichlid documented from Chembe Beach at Cape Maclear, within Lake Malawi National Park. Its epithet, "small-mouthed," fits a genus whose best-studied member, T. placodon, performs one of the lake's more delicate feeding tricks — drawing a snail's soft body whole out of its shell rather than crushing it, a task that rewards a precisely sized, controllable mouth over a large, powerful one.
Full Trematocranus microstoma account →