Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Neolamprologus lemairii

Lamprologus lemairii "Sibwesa"

Sibwesa — see-BWEH-sah (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 Neolamprologus lemairii account →

Specific to Sibwesa

  • 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 Neolamprologus lemairii.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size10 in25 cm total length
Temperature73–81 °F23–27 °C
pH7.3–8.5alkaline
Depth3–98 ft1–30 m
DietExclusive piscivore; ambush-hunts small fish and cichlid juveniles by thanatosis (feigning death) and sudden lunge
Breedingcave/crevice substrate spawner100–150 fry
Sexual dimorphismYesMales grow noticeably larger (females roughly one-third smaller); males have somewhat longer fins; no reliable external color difference — sexing by eye is unreliable
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Sibwesa population

Lamprologus lemairii "Sibwesa" is the Sibwesa population of Lamprologus lemairii, 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 Lamprologus lemairii, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Sibwesa fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Neolamprologus lemairii is a stout, marbled predator of Lake Tanganyika that hunts by doing almost nothing. Mottled grey-brown and built low to the floor, it settles onto sand or wedges among rocks and lies there motionless — a posture so convincingly limp that small fish drift in to inspect what looks like a corpse, only to be inhaled in a single lunge. Among the lake's lamprologine cichlids it is one of the largest and most thoroughly piscivorous, a sit-and-wait ambush specialist whose whole biology, from its cryptic coloration to its sedentary temperament, is organized around the strike.

Full Neolamprologus lemairii account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Lamprologus lemairii "Sibwesa"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — lemairii, Lamprologus (current status: valid as Neolamprologus lemairii, Boulenger 1899)
  3. FishBase — Lamprologus lemairii (Boulenger, 1899)
  4. GBIF — Lamprologus lemairii occurrence and taxonomy
  5. Takahashi & Koblmüller (2011), International Journal of Evolutionary Biology — The Adaptive Radiation of Cichlid Fish in Lake Tanganyika (uses L. lemairii as the piscivore skull exemplar)
  6. Wagner, McIntyre et al. (2009), Functional Ecology — Diet predicts intestine length in Lake Tanganyika's cichlid fishes (L. lemairii as piscivore)
  7. IUCN Red List — Lamprologus lemairii "Sibwesa"