Taxonomy & naming
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" is not a formally described species. It has no scientific name in the binomial sense, no describing author, no year of publication, and no entry in Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes, because no taxonomist has yet published a description of it. It is an informal taxon recognised in the field and aquarium literature, principally through the work of Ad Konings in his Malawi cichlid books and on the Cichlid Room Companion, and catalogued on the malawi.si species database. The placeholder name follows the standard convention for undescribed Malawi cichlids: the genus Aulonocara, the abbreviation "sp.", and an informal collective-and-locality tag in quotation marks. "Chitande Type" refers to a group of closely similar, sand-dwelling peacocks whose females and habits resemble one another so strongly that they are distinguished mainly by the breeding dress of their males and by where they were collected; "Kande" marks this form's home at Kande Island. Konings places it firmly within Aulonocara on anatomical grounds — it carries the genus's diagnostic enlarged cephalic sensory pores, the widened lateral-line canals of the head that define the peacocks. Its nearest described relatives sit within the broad sand-dwelling Aulonocara assemblage, and at Kande Island it shares the intermediate zone with the formally described Aulonocara kandeense and with the yellow form of Aulonocara stuartgranti. Until a formal revision is published, no authority or date should ever be attached to it.
Morphology
This is a medium-sized peacock built on the genus's standard plan: a moderately deep, laterally compressed haplochromine body and a head carrying the enlarged sensory pores — the widened lateral-line canals — that mark all Aulonocara. Typical adult size for the Kande form is not well documented, but it falls within the usual Chitande Type range of roughly 3.5–4.5 in for males, with females a little smaller. Sexual dichromatism is present and is the only reliable way to separate this form from its Chitande Type relatives. Breeding males of the Kande fish are reported to be the darkest of the group — more heavily pigmented overall than the other Chitande Type forms — and they are further distinguished by the edging of the dorsal fin, which is white at Kande as opposed to the black marginal band that marks the breeding males of Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type North." Females and non-breeding individuals are drab, silvery-brown and cryptically marked, and are essentially indistinguishable from the females of the other Chitande Type peacocks. That female overlap is the central identification problem of the whole group: only a colored, territorial male, in its home locality, can be assigned to a particular Chitande Type form with confidence.
Habitat
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" is endemic to Kande Island, on the central-western shore of Lake Malawi, and as far as is documented occurs nowhere else. Its biotope is the intermediate zone typical of the peacocks — open sand bordered by scattered rocks rather than continuous reef or pure sand flat. Territorial males are usually found close to rocks, which serve as the centres of their weak territories, while groups of females and juveniles gather over open sand several metres away from the rocky areas. The water is the warm, hard, strongly alkaline medium typical of Lake Malawi's upper column. Because the entire known population is confined to a single island and is reported to be very small, the form is potentially vulnerable to over-collection and to local extinction even though it has never been formally assessed; that single-locality fragility is a recurring theme across the narrowly endemic Chitande Type peacocks.
Feeding
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" is a sand-sifting invertivore, the foraging mode that defines the peacock radiation. It feeds on small invertebrates living in the sand, locating them by detecting the tiny movements of buried prey through the enlarged sensory pores on its head. The characteristic peacock posture is a motionless hover a centimetre or two above the substrate while the head pores register faint stirrings beneath; when prey is detected the fish darts down, takes a mouthful of sand, sifts out the edible items and expels the spent grains. The diet is the genus-typical menu of small benthic invertebrates — insect larvae and micro-crustaceans worked out of the soft sediment between and around the scattered rocks. In captivity this translates to a need for a fine sand bed, over which the fish will readily display its sifting behaviour, and a varied diet of fine prepared foods plus small live or frozen invertebrates.
Mating
Like all Lake Malawi haplochromines, this form is polygynous and lek-like, with no pair bond. Males hold weak territories centred on rocks at the edge of the sand and defend them only feebly, and only against other males of their own kind; a territorial male may even leave his patch to feed, which underlines how low-intensity the social system is compared with the busy, combative leks of some peacocks. Females are not territorial. They move in large schools over the open sand a few metres away and are led to a male's shallow spawning dish — a saucer-shaped depression scraped in the sand between or near rocks — only when ready to spawn. Courtship follows the conventional haplochromine pattern, with a ripe female approaching a displaying male. Overall aggression is low, and the dispersed, sand-school social structure means encounters between individuals are gentle and intermittent.
Breeding
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" is a maternal mouthbrooder, as are all members of the genus. The male leads a willing female to the shallow spawning depression he has prepared in the sand; she lays a small batch of eggs and immediately takes them into her mouth, then is drawn to the egg-spot markings on the male's anal fin and, in attempting to gather these "eggs," takes in milt that fertilises the clutch already in her buccal cavity. The female then carries the developing eggs and fry in her mouth, ceasing to feed for most of the brooding period, before releasing free-swimming young; there is no male or post-release parental care. Clutch size and brooding period are not specifically documented for this form, but by the standard of similarly sized peacocks the clutch is modest — a few dozen eggs — and the brooding period roughly three to four weeks. The form is only rarely kept in aquaria, so dedicated captive-breeding accounts are scarce.
In the aquarium
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" is an uncommon fish in the hobby. It is collected only in small numbers from its single island and does not appear in the trade with anything like the frequency of the popular yellow and blue peacocks, so most keepers will never encounter it; when it is offered, it is usually as wild or wild-descended stock from specialist Malawi importers. Its requirements follow the general template for a sand-dwelling intermediate-zone peacock.
The tank should provide a fine sand substrate of at least 2 in — coarse gravel inhibits the sifting behaviour and can damage the gills — together with a limited arrangement of rocks near which a male can establish his weak territory, and generous open sand where a group of females can forage. A footprint of at least 49 in (around 80 US gal) is a sensible minimum given the species' schooling, dispersed habits. Water chemistry should mirror Lake Malawi's upper column: temperature in the mid-20s Celsius, pH on the alkaline side of neutral (roughly 7.7 to 8.6), and moderately hard to hard general hardness. Prolonged exposure to soft or acidic water causes chronic problems in Malawi cichlids and should be avoided.
Because the fish is weakly territorial and low in aggression, it mixes well with other peaceable haps and peacocks, but the standard caution applies: keep no more than one male of this form per tank, and avoid housing it with the visually similar Aulonocara stuartgranti or other Chitande Type peacocks, since mixing risks hybridisation that muddies the genetics of an already poorly understood form. A single male with several females is the natural and recommended arrangement. Diet should be the standard varied peacock menu — a quality cichlid pellet or flake supplemented with small frozen or live invertebrates such as chironomid larvae and brine shrimp — while fatty foods are avoided, as they predispose Malawi cichlids to bloat.
Conservation
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Kande" has not been evaluated by the IUCN, and because it is an undescribed form without a formal scientific name it has no Red List assessment of any kind — no status, no category, no published criteria. That absence is not reassurance. The fish is endemic to a single island, Kande Island, and the known population is described as very small, a combination that makes it inherently exposed to local extinction through over-collection for the trade, habitat disturbance, or chance events at the one place where it lives. The conservative and honest position, and the one taken in the field literature, is simply that it is unassessed, narrowly endemic, and potentially highly vulnerable. No fabricated conservation status should ever be attached to it.