Tropheus polli "Karilani Island"
Karilani Island — kah-ree-LAH-nee EYE-land (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 Tropheus polli account →Specific to Karilani Island
- 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 Tropheus polli.
The Karilani Island population
Tropheus polli "Karilani Island" is the Karilani Island population of Tropheus polli, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Tropheus polli, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Karilani Island fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Tropheus polli is a rock-grazing cichlid endemic to a single stretch of Lake Tanganyika's central-eastern, Tanzanian shore, and one of the largest members of a genus better known for its many color races. It is also one of the more contested: some authorities treat it as a valid species, while Ad Konings folds the eastern populations into the older Tropheus annectens. Whatever name wins, this is a sedentary, algae-scraping reef fish that almost never leaves its few square meters of rock, and a notoriously demanding one in the aquarium.
Full Tropheus polli account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Tropheus polli 'Karilani Island'
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes - Axelrod 1977 reference (ref. 17764)
- FishBase: Tropheus polli summary
- FishBase: Tropheus polli original-description bibliography (type locality)
- FishBase: Tropheus polli territory list
- Konings (2013): New information on Tropheus annectens (anal-fin spine diagnosis, type locality)