Xenotilapia ochrogenys "Kasenge Bay"
Xenotilapia ochrogenys (Bilila (Kavala) Island, Bilinge Bay, Burundi, Kalya, Karilani Island, Kasenge Bay, Kigoma, Mabilibili, Mahale Mountains NP, Sibwesa Rocks, Siyeswe Bay)
Kasenge Bay — kah-SEHN-geh BAY (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 ochrogenys account →Specific to Kasenge Bay
- 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 ochrogenys.
The Kasenge Bay population
Xenotilapia ochrogenys "Kasenge Bay" is the Kasenge Bay population of Xenotilapia ochrogenys, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Xenotilapia ochrogenys, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Kasenge Bay fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Xenotilapia ochrogenys is a small, silver, sand-dwelling cichlid of Lake Tanganyika that lives much of its life as part of a roving school over the shallow lakebed, sifting mouthfuls of sand for buried invertebrates. For a few frantic weeks each breeding season the school's drab males flush into color, stake out spawning grounds, and engage in a promiscuous free-for-all in which a single female's eggs may be fertilized by two or three different males before she takes the clutch into her mouth to brood. That maternal mouthbrooding is itself notable: the genus Xenotilapia is one of the very few cichlid lineages in which biparental and female-only brood care sit side by side on the family tree, and ochrogenys falls cleanly on the maternal side of that divide.
Full Xenotilapia ochrogenys account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Xenotilapia ochrogenys "Kasenge Bay"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — ochrogenys, Enantiopus (Boulenger 1914), valid as Xenotilapia ochrogenys
- FishBase — Xenotilapia ochrogenys (Boulenger, 1914)
- FishBase — Reproduction summary, Xenotilapia ochrogenys
- GBIF — Xenotilapia ochrogenys (Boulenger, 1914), accepted taxon (speciesKey 2369825)
- Kidd, Duftner, Koblmüller, Sturmbauer & Hofmann 2012 — Repeated Parallel Evolution of Parental Care Strategies within Xenotilapia (PLoS ONE 7(2):e31236)
- IUCN Red List — Xenotilapia ochrogenys "Kasenge Bay"