Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Xenotilapia leptura

Xenotilapia leptura "Mahale Mountains NP"

Xenotilapia leptura (Cameron Bay, Cape Kachese, Izinga Island, Jakobsen's Beach, Kala, Kalala Island, Kasanga, Katondo Point, Mahale Mountains NP, Mzungu Beach, Nondwa Point, Tembwe (Deux))

Mahale Mountains NP — mah-HAH-leh moh-oon-TAH-eens NP (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 Xenotilapia leptura account →

Specific to Mahale Mountains NP

  • 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 Xenotilapia leptura.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Genus type speciesXenotilapia simaBoulenger 1899
Scientific size4.5 in11 cm total length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.5–8.5alkaline
Habitat waterhard · 600–690 µS/cmLake Tanganyika
Depth10–131 ft3–40 m
DietHerbivore — a rocky grazer scraping filamentous and unicellular algae (aufwuchs) from stone, with opportunistic plankton-picking in open water.
BreedingBiparental mouthbrooderSmall, on the order of a few dozen eggs (genus-typical; not precisely documented)
Sexual dimorphismYesWeak. Males average slightly larger and color up more strongly at breeding; sexes otherwise look alike and are best told apart by spawning behavior.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Mahale Mountains NP population

Xenotilapia leptura "Mahale Mountains NP" is the Mahale Mountains NP population of Xenotilapia leptura, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Xenotilapia leptura, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Mahale Mountains NP fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Xenotilapia leptura is a slender, rock-grazing cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, recognizable by its low-slung, downward-facing mouth built for scraping algae from stone. Unusually for its lineage, it is a vegetarian among mostly invertebrate-sifting relatives, and it is a biparental mouthbrooder in which both parents share the brood. Its name is a taxonomic moving target: described in the monotypic genus Asprotilapia, moved into Xenotilapia by some authors, and still listed as Asprotilapia leptura by the Catalog of Fishes and the IUCN.

Full Xenotilapia leptura account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Xenotilapia leptura "Mahale Mountains NP"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — species record for leptura (Asprotilapia)
  3. FishBase — Xenotilapia leptura summary
  4. GBIF — Xenotilapia Boulenger, 1899
  5. WoRMS / Marine Species Traits — Xenotilapia leptura (Boulenger, 1901)
  6. Takahashi, T. (2003). Systematics of Tanganyikan cichlid fishes (Teleostei: Perciformes). Ichthyological Research 50:367–382
  7. IUCN Red List — Xenotilapia leptura "Mahale Mountains NP"
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