Catfishes
Singhi, magur, pangas, wels and the Mekong giant catfish. 3 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.
Still to be written: Mekong giant catfish, Wels catfish, Iridescent shark, Channel catfish, Clarias magur, Heteropneustes fossilis, Bagarius yarrelli, Ompok pabda.
Further reading
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