Catfish

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Catfish
Black pygmy catfish (Ameiurus melas)

Black pygmy catfish ( Ameiurus melas )

Systematics
Overcohort : Clupeocephala
Cohort : Otomorpha
Sub-cohort : Ostariophysi
Otophysa
Order : Catfish (Siluriformes)
Family : Catfish
Scientific name
Ictaluridae
Gill , 1861

The catfish (Ictaluridae ( Gr .: "Ichthys" = fish; "ailouros" = cat)), also called dwarf catfish , are a family of native catfish in North America, from southern Canada to Guatemala . With 50 species, they are the largest freshwater fish family endemic to North America . Originally they only occurred east of the Rocky Mountains , but were also spread by humans in the western US states and other countries on other continents. The catfish ( Ameiurus nebulosus ) in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the speckled catfish ( Ictalurus punctatus ) in South East England and the Black bullhead ( Ameiurus melas introduced) in central and southern Italy.

features

Catfish are scaly and have elongated bodies that are almost round in cross-section in the front and increasingly flattened towards the rear. The largest species Ictalurus furcatus and Pylodictis olivaris can reach a maximum length of 1.6 meters and weigh 60 kg. Species of the genus Noturus , however, are only 6 to 30 centimeters long. The heads are big and broad. Catfish always have eight barbels around their mouths, the longest pair of barbels on the upper jaw, one on the rear nostril and two below the lower jaw. The jaw and palatine bone are dentate. An adipose fin is present, small and flag-like or elongated and fringed. The dorsal (not in Prietella ) and pectoral fins have a very strong sting ray, which is covered with skin, is in connection with poison glands and can be locked in a splayed position. The dorsal fin usually has six soft rays. The anal fin is long. The palatine bone is toothless (not in the extinct genus Astephus ).

Four blind, pigmentless species are known from cave waters in Texas and northeastern Mexico (genera Prietella , Trogloglanis and Satan ). Satan eurystomus lives in an artesian spring near San Antonio , Texas, at a depth of 380 meters.

Way of life

Catfish are nocturnal predatory fish that hunt their prey on the bottom of the water. They eat snails, worms, insects, crustaceans, fish spawn and small fish. They do brood care. The male or both parents guard the eggs (45 to 300 depending on the species), which hold together as a lump or string, and the tadpole-like larvae.

Systematics

Catfish cladogram
 Catfish  

 † Astephus


   

 Ictalurus


   

 Trogloglanis


   

 Ameiurus


   


 Noturus


   

 Prietella



   

 Pylodictis


   

 Satan





Template: Klade / Maintenance / 3


Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style
This diagram shows the relationship between the individual genera:

External system

Within the order of the catfish (Siluriformes), the catfish are closely related to the East Asian armored catfish (Cranoglanididae) and with them form the superfamily Ictaluroidea.

Internal system

There are 50 recent species in seven genera , three of which are monotypical .

White catfish ( Ameiurus catus )
Spotted catfish ( Ictalurus punctatus )
Noturus flavipinnis
Noturus flavus
Stein Wels ( Noturus Gyrinus )
Noturus insignis
Noturus flavus
Noturus miurus
Flat head catfish ( Pylodictis olivaris )

Fossils

Catfish are fossilized from the extinct genus Astephus from the Eocene and several extinct species of Ameiurus from the Oligocene and Neogene .

use

Catfish in a fish pond in Mexico.

Like trout, catfish are bred commercially in ponds. The brown catfish or dwarf catfish ( Ameiurus nebulosus ) and the black catfish ( Ameiurus melas ) were also released as food fish in Europe , Turkey and other countries in Asia and have established and spread there in many places. They are relatively undemanding and insensitive to anthropogenic environmental changes. In Central Europe , however, they usually remain smaller than in North America and are therefore insignificant for the fishing industry. In the United States, bare hand fishing for catfish, known as noodling , has become a sport.

In many German waters there is an obligation to remove brown catfish or dwarf catfish. These extraction obligations, regulated by the fishing regulations of the respective federal state , are declared by local fishing associations, fishing clubs or their umbrella organizations as well as by the fishing authority. Catfish act as spawn robbers and thereby decimate the existing fish stocks without having natural enemies themselves. There are documented bodies of water in which the cat catfish population has reached a state of plague-like status. This condition is expressed by the fact that the population of other fish species is greatly reduced, there are hardly any juveniles of these fish species and the population of catfish is extremely high. In these waters, sport fishing for other fish species is difficult or almost impossible.

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fritz Terofal: Steinbach's natural guide, freshwater fish. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-80014-296-1
  2. ↑ Larry Page, John G. Lundberg: Ictaluridae. North American Freshwater Catfishes, Bullhead Catfishes. In: The Tree of Life Web Project. 2007 (english)
  3. ↑ JP Sullivan, Lundberg JG; Hardman M: A phylogenetic analysis of the major groups of catfishes (Teleostei: Siluriformes) using rag1 and rag2 nuclear gene sequences . In: Mol Phylogenet Evol. . 41, No. 3, 2006, pp. 636-62. doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2006.05.044 .
  4. ^ Karl Albert Frickhinger: Fossil Atlas Fish , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, 1999, ISBN 3-88244-018-X

Web links

Commons : Catfish (Ictaluridae)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files