🐟Walking catfish
The walking catfish is a species of freshwater airbreathing catfish native to Southeast Asia. It is named for its ability to "walk" and wiggle across dry land, to find food or suitable environments. While it does not truly walk as most bipeds or quadrupeds do, it can use its pectoral fins to keep it upright as it makes a wiggling motion with snakelike movements to traverse land. This fish normally lives in slow-moving and often stagnant waters in ponds, swamps, streams, and rivers, as well as in flooded rice paddies, or temporary pools that may dry up. When this happens, its "walking" skill allows the fish to move to other aquatic environments. Considerable taxonomic confusion surrounds this species, and it has frequently been confused with other close relatives. One main distinction between the walking catfish and the native North American ictalurid catfish with which it is sometimes confused, is that the walking catfish lacks an adipose fin. It can survive 18 hours out of water.
Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
IUCN Red List assessment, 2019.
- Body mass
- 1.19 kg
- Body length
- 0.26 m
- Shoulder height
- not recorded
- Top speed
- not recorded
- Bite force
- not recorded
- Maximum lifespan
- not recorded
Everything we know about the Walking catfish
Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.
Body mass1.19 kgmaximum recordedFishBaseDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: FishBase · v25.04 · CC BY-NC 4.0
Body length0.26 mrecord 0.47 m · FishBasetypical adultFishBaseDetails ↓Hide ↑
Record: largest individual on record
Source: FishBase · v25.04 · CC BY-NC 4.0
Trophic level3.42FishBaseDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: FishBase · v25.04, estimate table · CC BY-NC 4.0
DietcarnivoreaverageDetails ↓Hide ↑
From trophic level 3.42 (FishBase): <2.2 herbivore, 2.2–2.8 omnivore, >2.8 carnivore.
Danger to humanspotential pestFishBaseDetails ↓Hide ↑
Source: FishBase · v25.04 · CC BY-NC 4.0
Volume l1.2 LaverageDetails ↓Hide ↑
Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.
average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.
Not recorded for Walking catfish yet: shoulder height, top speed, bite force, maximum lifespan.
Family tree
- kingdomAnimalia
- ›phylumChordata
- ›orderSiluriformes
- ›familyClariidae
- ›genusClarias
- ›speciesClarias batrachus
- superclassRay-finned fish · Actinopterygii
- orderSiluriformes
- suborderSiluroidei
- familyClariidae
All 12 branches ↓Fewer branches ↑
- kingdomMetazoa
- phylumChordata
- subphylumCraniata
- subphylumVertebrata
- superclassGnathostomata
- superclassRay-finned fish · Actinopterygii
- classActinopteri
- subclassNeopterygii
- superorderCharaciphysae
- orderSiluriformes
- suborderSiluroidei
- familyClariidae
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