Erstbeschreibung als Xenotilapia tenuidentata:
ZooBank:C9F18395-36DE-4C9C-8976-E8F685F6BBCB.
- Poll, Max. 1951. "Troisième série de Cichlidae nouveaux recueillis par la mission hydrobiologique belge au lac Tanganika (1946-1947) - Suite 1". Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique. 27(30):1-11 (crc00297)
Artenschutz: Microdontochromis tenuidentatus wurde durch die Internationale Union für die Erhaltung der Natur (IUZN) in der Roten Liste bedrohter Arten bewertet als (LC) nicht gefährdet (2006). M. tenuidentatus occurs in areas with ample plankton and is found in huge schools of 500 to 2500 individuals. It is so small that it can swim through the mazes of regulated sized seines and lives deep enough and close enough to rocks that illegal mosquito nets have little effect on the population density. The only threat would be a sharp decline in copepods concentrations, but when something like that happens it is either a very local problem and when not the entire lake would be in danger as many species rely on copepods for food.