Bumblebee Cichlid

(Maylandia crabro)

(also Pseudotropheus crabro or Pseudotropheus chameleon)

Mr B

This guy (the largest one) is the king of the tank, and has been named "Mr. B" due to his large personality. Given the number of bright egg spots, his ability to turn almost entirely black when aggressive and the fact that he is the dominant fish in the tank, he is probably male.

Here is a recent picture of Mr. B in in full dominant male coloring. He's pretty much always like this now, except when scared by me cleaning the tank or when Bluebeard is chasing him around.

Here is another recent picture of Mr. B. He's a little tattered in this picture because he's still recovering from his fight with Little B.

Mr. B has a wide range of colorations, ranging from almost entirely black when he's particularly aggressive to almost pure orange when intimidated or unhappy. Here he is mostly orange.

This is a picture from close to when I got him. Notice how many more fin spots he has in the other, more recent pictures!

Here is a lovely photo showing Mr B. in an aggressive pose. Look at those fins!

Sometimes his stripes get much darker than this, but usually after the first couple pictures I take, he only gets this dark. I think the flash intimidates him, and also makes his markings appear less dark.

This picture is also pretty nice. He's cruising away, trying to escape the camera.

Samantha

This is Samantha. She is distinguishable by the upsidedown V shaped bar about 1/3 from her tail. She has it on both sides, as you can see here.

Nancy

This is Nancy, my second male crabro. Yes yes, Nancy is a female name... it was an accident. So far Nancy has failed to anger Mr B. enough to get killed like Little B, however, I'm watching him.

Here are some pictures of Nancy as a baby. She used to be the smallest and most picked on of the M. crabro.

Little B (Deceased)

This male fish, Little B, died recently in a territory dispute with Mr B.

Upon reaching maturity, Little B tried to be the dominant male in the tank. He turned almost jet black and started chasing Mr B around. Unfortunately, Mr B decided to eliminate the competition.