Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Lupingu"

Lupinguloo-PEEN-goo (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. "Mauve Yellow" account →

Specific to Lupingu

  • 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. "Mauve Yellow".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4 in10 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Hardness (GH)very hardup to 446 ppm
Depth10–66 ft3–20 m
DietAlgae grazer, scraping aufwuchs from rock surfaces using specialised comb-like teeth
Breedingmaternal mouthbroodernot documented for this form; expected modest, a few dozen eggs, by analogy with similarly sized Tropheops
Sexual dimorphismYesTrade name indicates a mauve body tone with yellow markings in breeding males; independent published colour description is not available beyond this.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Lupingu population

Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Lupingu" is the Lupingu population of Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow", a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Lupingu fish at malawi.si

About the species

Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" is an undescribed rock-dwelling mbuna recorded from a scattered set of localities on both shores of northern Lake Malawi and into Mozambican waters. Like other Tropheops it is a specialised algae grazer, taking its trade name from the mauve-and-yellow breeding colouration reported in males. It has not been the subject of a dedicated published account, so this record is necessarily conservative: it is placed in Tropheops on general anatomical grounds and described here mainly in terms of what the genus and the trade name itself indicate, rather than a fully documented independent colour description. No authority, publication year, FishBase number, or IUCN status should be attached to it.

Full Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Tropheops sp. "Mauve Yellow" "Lupingu"
  2. malawi.si — Konings-based Lake Malawi cichlid species and locality database
  3. Cichlid Room Companion — Malawi cichlid genus and undescribed-form references (Ad Konings, curator)
  4. Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press)