Taxonomy & naming
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" is not a formally described species. It has no binomial scientific name, 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" denotes a cluster of closely similar sand-dwelling peacocks distinguished mainly by male breeding dress and collection locality, while "Nkhomo" marks this form's home on the Nkhomo-Benga Reef. Konings places it firmly within Aulonocara, since it carries the genus's diagnostic enlarged cephalic sensory pores. It is most readily confused with Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Masinje" and Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type North," from both of which it is separated by male coloration. 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 that define all Aulonocara. Males reach about 4.5 in and females about 3.5 in. Sexual dichromatism is present and provides the only reliable separation from the other Chitande Type forms. Breeding males of the Nkhomo fish are noticeably bluer than those of Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Masinje," and they lack the black marginal band in the dorsal fin that marks the breeding males of Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type North." Females and non-breeding individuals are drab, silvery-brown and cryptically marked; they resemble the females of the other Chitande Type forms but are slightly larger and more elongate than females of the Masinje form. As across the whole group, confident identification rests on a colored, territorial male examined in its home range — the drab females alone cannot be assigned to a particular form.
Habitat
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" is restricted to the northern edge of the Nkhomo-Benga Reef, a large submerged reef off the central-western shore near Benga; a single male observed at nearby Jalo Reef may also belong to this form. Its biotope is intermediate habitat — open sand at the edge of the reef, where the bottom slopes steeply downward. Groups of females gather over the sand, and even males in breeding coloration are often found several metres away from the protective rocks. A key fact about this reef is depth: most of its rocks lie around 72 ft down, which is why this form, together with the celebrated yellow peacock Aulonocara baenschi, is confined to deeper water and absent from the shallower nearshore reefs. The water is the warm, hard, strongly alkaline medium typical of Lake Malawi's deeper inshore zones. Although its range is very limited, the form is reported to be very abundant on the Nkhomo-Benga Reef.
Feeding
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" 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 faint movements of buried prey through the enlarged sensory pores on its head. The genus's signature posture is a motionless hover just above the substrate, after which 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 worked out of the open sand at the edge of the reef. In captivity this translates to a need for a fine sand bed, over which the sifting behaviour is readily displayed, 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 weakly defend territories only against other males of their own kind; the spawning site is a shallow depression scraped in the sand close to a rock. Females move in large schools a few metres away over the open sand and are enticed to enter a male's territory only when ready to spawn. Interactions are generally slow and low in intensity, with rival males repelled mainly by lateral display rather than fighting. The overall picture is the quiet, dispersed lek typical of the Chitande Type peacocks — quite unlike the busy, combative leks of some shallow-water peacocks.
Breeding
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" 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 near a rock; 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. She then broods the developing eggs and fry in her mouth, fasting for most of the period, before releasing free-swimming young; there is no male or post-release parental care. Clutch size and brooding duration are not specifically documented for this form, but a clutch of a few dozen eggs and a brooding period of roughly three to four weeks would be typical for a peacock of its size.
In the aquarium
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" is an uncommon fish in the hobby. Although abundant on its home reef, it is collected only sporadically and from deeper water, so it does not appear in the trade with anything like the frequency of the popular yellow and blue peacocks; when offered, it is usually as wild or wild-descended stock from specialist Malawi importers. Its husbandry follows the general Chitande Type template.
The tank should provide a fine sand substrate of at least 2 in together with a limited arrangement of rocks near which a male may establish a weak territory, and ample open sand where a group of females can gather. A footprint of at least 49 in (around 80 US gal) is a sensible minimum. Water chemistry should mirror Lake Malawi's deeper inshore zones: 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.
The fish is low in aggression and weakly territorial, so it mixes well with other peaceable haps and peacocks, but no more than one male of this form should be kept per tank, and it should not be housed with Aulonocara baenschi or visually similar Chitande Type peacocks, since mixing risks hybridisation that would muddy the genetics of a 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 — with fatty foods avoided, as they predispose Malawi cichlids to bloat.
Conservation
Aulonocara sp. "Chitande Type Nkhomo" has not been evaluated by the IUCN, and as an undescribed form without a formal scientific name it has no Red List assessment of any kind — no status, no category, no published criteria. Its situation is a curious one: its range is very limited, confined essentially to the northern edge of a single reef, yet it is reported to be very abundant there, and its confinement to deeper water (around 72 ft) gives it some natural protection from the netting that targets shallower sand-dwellers. A single-reef distribution nonetheless leaves any population exposed to local disturbance and over-collection. The honest position is simply that it is unassessed, narrowly endemic but locally common, and that no fabricated conservation status should ever be attached to it.