Tyrannochromis polyodon "Lupingu"
Lupingu — loo-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 Tyrannochromis polyodon 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 Tyrannochromis polyodon.
The Lupingu population
Tyrannochromis polyodon "Lupingu" is the Lupingu population of Tyrannochromis polyodon, 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 Tyrannochromis polyodon, 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
Tyrannochromis polyodon is a large, big-jawed predatory cichlid from Lake Malawi, one of the lake's handful of giant ambush hunters that patrol the rocky and sandy shore for smaller fish. Its epithet — Greek for "many teeth" — describes a mouth built to seize prey rather than to graze. It sits inside a small, taxonomically contested genus: the closely related Tyrannochromis macrostoma has at times absorbed it as a synonym, though the name polyodon continues to be treated as valid for populations like the ones documented here, spanning sites from the far north of the lake to the southwestern arm.
Full Tyrannochromis polyodon account →Sources
- malawi.si — Tyrannochromis polyodon "Lupingu"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — online database (authority for valid fish names; Haplochromis polyodon Trewavas, 1935)
- Konings, A. — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press; genus Tyrannochromis and the macrostoma/polyodon synonymy question)