Silver Catfish, RHAMDIA QUELEN

Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the March 19, 2008 Newsletter written in the community of 28 de Junio, in the Central Valley 8 kms west of Pujiltic, Chiapas, MÉXICO
about 800 meters in elevation, ± LAT. 16° 18'N, LONG. -92° 28'W.
DEAD CATISH IN A CANAL

As if finding crabs breeding in freshwater wasn't enough, last Tuesday Leuccio brought in a dead catfish he'd just found in a canal. That's it he's holding above.

*UPDATE: Years later, much more information is available on the Internet; this looks like the the above fish is the freshwater Silver Catfish, RHAMDIA QUELEN, distributed from southern Mexico into most of South America.

I carry with me the little Golden Guide called Fishes -- the world's fishes in 160 pocket-size pages. What's interesting about Leuccio's catfish is that the closest thing in the little Golden Guide to our canal catfish is one of the *Marine Catfishes, maybe genus Galeichthys. For now this must remain a mystery.