''Prochilodus nigricans'', or black prochilodus, is a species of prochilodontid fish from the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its 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 of Boli ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

. It supports major fisheries; according to

IBAMA Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources ( pt, Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis, IBAMA) is the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment's administrative arm. IBAMA supports anti-d ...

, it is the third most caught

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

in the Brazilian Amazon by weight, after ''

Brachyplatystoma ''Brachyplatystoma'' is a genus of catfish from the family Pimelodidae. As the occasionally used common name goliath catfishes indicates, this genus includes some of the largest species of catfish, including the piraíba, ''B. filamentosum'', wh ...

vaillantii'' and ''

Semaprochilodus ''Semaprochilodus'' is a genus of South American freshwater fish in the family Prochilodontidae. They have sometimes been included in the genus '' Prochilodus'' instead. Of the six species, three are from the Amazon Basin, two from the Orinoco B ...

'' spp.Araujo-Lima, C.A.R.M.; and M.L. Ruffino (2003). Migratory Fishes of the Brazilian Amazon. Pp. 233—302 in: Carolsfeld, J.; B. Harvey; C. Ross; and A. Baer (editors). Migratory Fishes of South America. The black prochilodus is migratory, moving between different parts of the Amazon. The black prochilodus reaches up to in

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

and in weight.

References

Prochilodontidae Taxa named by Johann Baptist von Spix Taxa_named_by_Louis_Agassiz Fish described in 1829 {{Characiformes-stub