Melanochromis johannii "Border"
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 Pseudotropheus johannii account →Specific to Border
- 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 Pseudotropheus johannii.
The Border population
Melanochromis johannii "Border" is the Border population of Melanochromis johannii, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Melanochromis johannii, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Border fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Pseudotropheus johannii, the bluegray mbuna or 'johanni', is a small rock-dwelling cichlid endemic to the eastern shore of Lake Malawi. It is a textbook example of reversed sexual dichromatism: adult males are inky blue-black ruled by two electric-blue stripes, while females and juveniles are a uniform marigold yellow-orange — so different that early aquarists took them for separate species. Long a hobby staple, it is also one of Malawi's most frequently misidentified fish, routinely confused with the near-identical 'maingano' from Likoma Island and burdened with an unsettled genus name that has bounced between Melanochromis and Pseudotropheus for half a century.
Full Pseudotropheus johannii account →Sources
- malawi.si — Melanochromis johannii "Border"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Pseudotropheus johannii (Eccles 1973), species record
- FishBase — Pseudotropheus johannii (Bluegray mbuna)
- malawi.si — Pseudotropheus johannii 'Gome' (M.K. Oliver / Stuart Grant database; data and photos after Ad Konings)
- The ETYFish Project — Pseudocrenilabrinae: Pseudotropheus johannii etymology
- USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species — Melanochromis johannii (blue mbuna)
- IUCN Red List — Melanochromis johannii "Border"