Male at Chidunga Rocks
A male of Melanochromis chipokae at Chidunga Rocks, Lake Malawi [Malawi]. Photo by Ad Konings. (29-Oct-2005). determiner Ad Konings

Family
Cichlidae

Sub-family
Pseudocrenilabrinae

Genus
Melanochromis


Curator

Published:

Last updated on:
08-Jun-2008

Melanochromis chipokae Johnson, 1975


04-Apr-2012 — Review of the genus Melanochromis and a new species
By Ad Konings

Konings and Stauffer describe Melanochromis mpoto, formerly known as Melanochromis 'blue', from the northwestern part of Lake Malawi. They further review a number of species poorly described by Johnson in the 1970s and 80s from aquarium specimens and found that they needed to synonymize M. parallelus Burgess & Axelrod 1976 with M. loriae Johnson 1975, and redescribe M. chipokae Johnson 1975. These two species were confused in the literature because of Johnson's mixing up of the photos accompanying his description. Konings and Stauffer further define the enigmatic M. robustus Johnson 1985, which was described from an overfed aquarium specimen of unknown provenance. Comparison of the latter species with a species previously known as Melanochromis brevis revealed that these are two different entities and that M. brevis actually is conspecific with the informal species Pseudotropheus 'williamsi nkhudzi' from Ribbink et al. (1983). Konings and Stauffer therefore reclassify Trewavas's M. brevis and place it in the genus Pseudotropheus and further designate a lectotype and a paralectotype for P. brevis. The large Melanochromis known from Chinyankwazi and Mumbo Islands is now identified as M. robustus.

Konings, Ad & Jay R. Stauffer-Jr.. 2012. "Review of the Lake Malawi genus Melanochromis (Teleostei: Cichlidae) with a description of a new species". Zootaxa. 3258:1-27 (crc04218) (abstract)