The gilded catfish, Jau catfish or dourado catfish, (''Zungaro zungaro'') is a

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...

(

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Siluriformes) of the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Pimelodidae The Pimelodidae, commonly known as the long-whiskered catfishes, are a family of catfishes (order Siluriformes). Taxonomy The family Pimelodidae has undergone much revision. Currently, it contains about 30 genera and about 90 recognized and know ...

. It is also known as manguruyu or black manguruyu.

Taxonomy

By some sources, it is the only

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Zungaro''. However, some sources list other species as valid, such as ''Zungaro jahu''. This species may be referred to by one of its

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

, ''Brachyplatystoma flavicans''. This species contains two subspecies, ''Z. z. mangurus'' and ''Z. z. zungaro''.

Distribution and habitat

They are sexually mature upon reaching weight. This fish native to the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...

and

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries ...

s; in the Amazon, this fish is found quite upstream, in the main bed of the big tributaries with muddy bottoms.

Description

This fish reaches in

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

, and specimens measuring and weighing are not rare. These fish are mainly piscivorous, hunt at night, and sometimes go into flood-prone areas of rivers. Some migrations in pursuit of migrating '' Triportheus'' and ''

Anodus ''Anodus'' is a genus of halftooths from tropical South America. There are currently two species in this genus. Species * '' Anodus elongatus'' Agassiz, 1829 * '' Anodus orinocensis'' (Steindachner Franz Steindachner (11 November 1834 in V ...

'' have been reported. The nursery ground is at the mouths of rivers.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q27173 Pimelodidae Catfish of South America Freshwater fish of Argentina Fish of Bolivia Catfish of Brazil Freshwater fish of Colombia Magdalena River Freshwater fish of Ecuador Fish of French Guiana

Catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...

Fish of Paraguay Freshwater fish of Peru Fish of Suriname Fish of Uruguay Fish of Venezuela Fish of the Amazon basin Fish described in 1821 Taxa named by Alexander von Humboldt