Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba"

Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" "Otter Island"

Otter Island — OT-ter 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 Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" account →

Specific to Otter 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 Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.5 in11 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.4–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth7–66 ft2–20 m
DietAlgae grazer (aufwuchs), rasping the algal mat from rock surfaces at a steep, head-down angle characteristic of the genus
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; genus-typical, on the order of a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesNot confidently documented for this form; the described T. gracilior varies sharply in male colour by locality, so no single colour is assumed here.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Otter Island population

Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" "Otter Island" is the Otter Island population of Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Otter Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" is an undescribed mbuna documented at Domwe Island and Otter Island, within the Nankumba Peninsula reef system in the southern part of Lake Malawi — the waters around Cape Maclear that make up Lake Malawi National Park, one of the most intensively studied mbuna areas in the world. Its name places it in the "gracilior" body-shape group, referencing the slender build of the formally described Tropheops gracilior, though it is a geographically and taxonomically separate population rather than that species itself. It has no formal description, and no authority, IUCN status, or FishBase entry should be attached to it.

Full Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Gracilior Nankumba" "Otter Island"
  2. Cichlid Room Companion — genus Tropheops
  3. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Fricke, Eschmeyer & Van der Laan, eds., CAS) — searched: no valid name for the undescribed "Gracilior Nankumba" form