An Australian Catfish 



HERBERT M. HALE 



South Australian Museum 



Tandanus tandanus 



Photo by Author 



/ 



During a recent collecting outing of 

 the South Australian Aquarium Society 

 to the River Murray, many of the in- 

 digenous fishes were obtained, and al- 

 though the majority of the species are 

 much too large for aquaria when adult, 

 the young of some of them proved of 

 sufficient interest to warrant their main- 

 tenance in captivity. Tiny fresh-water 

 catfishes were plentiful in the irrigation 

 waters and numbers have been since in- 

 troduced into members' aquaria with 

 happy results. When placed in company 

 with other species they appear to be quite 

 inoffensive and being bottom feeders act 

 as scavengers ; during their frequent 

 peregrinations meat or other food lying 



on the bottom is eagerly eaten by them 

 and thus the floor of the aquarium is kept 

 free from refuse passed over by more 

 fastidious inmates. At intervals they 

 also poke about between stones and peb- 

 bles in search of small aquatic creatures, 

 often disturbing quite a cloud of sand in 

 the water ; in the writer's aquaria they 

 ate the smaller water-snails with which 

 the jars were stocked. Judging from the 

 examination of the stomach contents of 

 large examples the natural food consists 

 largely of crustaceans, aquatic insects 

 and molluscs. 



The Murray catfish is not popular 

 with anglers on account of the serrated 

 spines with which the pectoral and first 



