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his is probably a species that you will not see in home aquaria as it grows to over 2 feet and is more comfortable in saline and brackish coastline waters. The species we are talking about is this months (September 2024) factsheet, the "Hardhead sea catfish", Ariopsis felis from the Ariidae family.

   Ariopsis felis

There has been many genus name changes for this species which has spanned most of the species over the years in this family even before Marceniuk et al in 2007 published their paper on the "Systematics of the family Ariidae (Ostariophysi, Siluriformes), with a redefinition of the genera". This paper had A. felis as the now synonym of Sciades felis. At the moment (2024) Ariopsis is the preferred genera of the "Forktail Catfishes" in the Ariinae sub-family and for another 5 species to date namely Ariopsis assimilis (Günther, 1864), Ariopsis canteri Acero P., Betancur-R. & Marceniuk, 2017, Ariopsis guatemalensis (Günther, 1864), Ariopsis jimenezi Marceniuk, Acero P., Cooke & Betancur-R, 2017, and Ariopsis seemanni (Günther, 1864).

Hardhead sea catfish

Silurus felis, Arius milberti, Arius equestris, Galeichthys guentheri, Sciades felis

Ariinae

Western Atlantic: Massachusetts south to Florida (U.S.A.), including Gulf of Mexico. Invasive in eastern Mediterranean Sea.

60.0cm (24ins)

25-35°c (77-97°f)

The hardhead catfish has four barbels under the chin, with two more at the corners of the mouth. The dorsal and pectoral fins each are supported by a sharp, slime-covered, barbed spine. The gafftopsail catfish looks similar to the hardhead catfish, but its dorsal and pectoral spines have a distinctive fleshy extension (like the fore-and-aft topsail of a ship).

Not a species for the home aquarium.

Males incubate eggs in the mouth, so a mouth brooder. It has been proposed that the highly modified pelvic fins may be the site of fertilisation and may play a role in transferring fertilised eggs to the mouth of the male for incubation (Gunter 1947). However, it is also possible that males pick up eggs from shallow depression in sand, as eggs, while adhesive, tend to be demersal.

Females develop flap-like fatty tissue on their pelvic fins at maturity, and thus have larger pelvic fins than males of the species (Lee 1937; Merriman 1940).

The barbels help the catfish find crabs, fish, and shrimp in the muddy bays where they live. It consumes a wide range of food. It is an opportunistic consumer that uses mud and sand flats as hunting grounds. It is also mainly a secondary consumer, ingesting primarily detritus, meio-, and macrobenthic fauna, and fish. Its diet primarily consists of algae, sea grasses, cnidarians, sea cucumbers, gastropods, polychaetes, shrimp, and crabs. It can occasionally be a tertiary consumer.

Adipose fin: Fleshy finlike projection without rays, behind the rayed dorsal fin.
Barbels: Whisker-like structure on the heads of most catfish.
Caudal fin: The tail.
Caudal peduncle: The narrow part of a fish's body to which the caudal or tail fin is attached.
Demersal: Sinking to or lying on the bottom; living on or near the bottom and feeding on benthic organisms.
Dorsal fin: The primary rayed fin(s) on top of the body.
Pelvic fins: The paired fins, between the pectorals and the anal fins. (also referred to as ventrals).
Pectoral: The paired fins just behind the head.

Ariopsis: Greek, ari = very, strength, superiority + Greek, opsis = appearance.
felis: cat (i.e., catfish), manuscript name coined by Scottish physician-naturalist Alexander Garden (1730-1791), Charleston, South Carolina (USA), who sent fish skins to Linnaeus.

Photo Credits

© Johnny Jensen @ 
Map: Google maps 2024.