Family AMEIURIDAE 



THE NORTH AMERICAN CATFISH FAMILY 



Catfishes are distinguished by their smooth, scaleless bodies, dorsal 

 adipose fins, stout spines in the dorsal and pectoral fins, and barbels on 

 the upper and lower jaws. The head and mouth are broad; the upper 

 jaw is formed in front by the premaxillaries. The numerous teeth are 

 slender and weak and are arranged in bands. Catfishes are among the 

 largest of the fresh- water fishes. 



About 35 species of this family are known from the United States 

 and Mexico. None occur in the Pacific drainage of the United States 

 except where introduced, but some are found in the Pacific drainage 

 of Mexico. A closely related family, Siluridae, includes several species 

 of Europe and Asia, such as the great wels, Silurus giants, of the 

 Danube, which reaches a length of 13 feet. Other closely related families 

 include the sea catfishes, the South and Central American catfishes, 

 including some cave species, and the electric catfishes of Africa. 



All the larger species are important food fishes. The larger ones keep 

 well in cold storage and may be shipped great distances alive, each 

 frozen in a cake of ice. 



Forbes and Richardson (1908) wrote of the catfishes as follows: "By 

 their ability to live contentedly in situations commonly avoided by most 

 other fishes, they organize into their living substance much food ma- 

 terial which would otherwise disappear as a mere natural waste, and, in 

 so far as they are themselves eaten by other fishes, they thus increase 

 the general supply of fish food in the waters they enter and inhabit. By 

 their services as scavengers, they help to protect more sensitive fishes 

 from the effects of the pollution of the water through a decomposition 

 of objects which they are themselves very willing to devour, and in this 

 way also they may convert into a form acceptable to other fishes food 

 substances otherwise useless. As we have found them to be eaten more 

 or less by both our species of black bass, by the sand-pike (Stizostedion 

 canadense), and by the yellow bullhead and the mud-cat, their utility 

 in this sense seems appreciable. 



"On the other hand, it must be noticed they have appeared very 

 rarely in the food of fishes, in comparison with their numbers and 

 general distribution. . . . They devour other fishes much more gener- 

 ally than others devour them. . . . Their partial immunity is doubtless 

 due in considerable measure to their remarkable defensive apparatus of 

 stiff, acute, projecting, poisoned spines in the pectoral and dorsal fins, 

 weapons capable of inflicting really painful punctures in animals as 

 large as man. 



"The nocturnal habits of catfishes must also contribute to their pro- 



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