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SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament

EveryFish

Catfishes

Singhi, magur, pangas, wels and the Mekong giant catfish. 43 fish on EveryFish so far.

Catfishes, the order Siluriformes, are named for the whisker-like barbels around their mouths. There are more than 3,000 species, roughly one in ten of all fish, living on every continent except Antarctica, mostly in fresh water. Most have no scales; some are armoured in bony plates. Many have sharp, locking spines on their pectoral and dorsal fins, and some of those spines carry venom.

Giants and air-breathers

The Mekong giant catfish and the wels catfish of Europe are among the largest freshwater fish, and the goonch of Himalayan rivers can grow well over a metre. At the other end, many small catfish are kept in aquariums, and the candiru of the Amazon is a thin parasite of other fish. In South Asia, magur and singhi breathe air through organs above the gills and live in swamps, paddies and ponds where oxygen runs low. Bengali tradition holds them to be light food for the sick.

Farmed and eaten

The iridescent shark catfish, pangasius, is farmed in vast numbers in Vietnam's Mekong delta and in Andhra Pradesh, and sold worldwide as cheap white fillets. The channel catfish is the main farmed fish of the southern United States. The African catfish has been farmed widely but is invasive, and its farming is banned in India. Pabda, boal, tengra and pangas are popular catfish in Bengali kitchens.

Famous catfish fish

Mekong giant catfishCan weigh around 300 kg

Wels catfishEurope's largest freshwater fish

Still to be written: Iridescent shark, Channel catfish, Clarias magur, Heteropneustes fossilis, Bagarius yarrelli, Ompok pabda.

Further reading

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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Wels catfish: Dieter Florian (To contact the author, ask the uploader or take a look, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, source
Mekong giant catfish: KKPCW, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

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