Finally we are able again to offer one of the most bizarre species of predatory catfish of Amazonia: Platystomatichthys sturio. Anyone who sees the fish for the first time will think that the animal is distorted; however, the upturned snout-tip is rather species-specific. Nevertheless the grade of this upturn differs individually and depends also a bit from the age of the animals. The maximum length of the species, which has a very wide distribution in Amazonia, is about 40 cm.
The sense or the reason of this upturned snout-tip are unknown. The species has extremely long barbels and prefers to swim against a strong current. Maybe the snout-tip helps to localize the prey or it may have a similar function as the spoiler of a car and helps so save energy while swimming against the current. There is also a lot of speculation that this upturned snout-tip is an artefact from keeping the fish in aquaria and resuls from swimming against the glasses of the tank; however, this sounds quite unlikely, for first of all allmost all – even very small – specimens can show this phenomenon and, twice, the species is not shy at all and tends not to panic and crash with anything.
Against conspecifics and other fish that are too large for prey, Platystomatichthys sturio are very peaceful.
For our customers: the animals have code 280705 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade. Available in limited numbers only!
Lexicon: Platystomatichthys: means “fish that looks like a Platystoma”; Platystoma is another genus of fish. sturio: means “sturgeon”, which refers to the similar body shape.
Common name: Fox Catfish
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
| Angaben zum Tier | |
|---|---|
| Herkunft | Peru |
| Verfügbare Größe in cm | 7-16 |
