cool animal episode 2

hello welcome to cool animal episode 2 i'm. not doing the colours this time.

today i give you. the walking catfish (Clarias batrachus), an interesting species of freshwater catfish

as you can guess by the name and by the fact this specimen is decidely not dead on the ground from suffocation, the walking catfish is known for being able to walk and breathe air. breathing air can be found in some other fish species (like lungfish), but not many are known for using their pectoral fins to walk from water body to water body like this guy. also to note they have these branch like organs that they use to breathe air (no pics cause i'm not sure how sensitive spacehey is regarding pictures of organs lol).

something i found when researching this species is that there seems to be a lot of taxonomic debate over which populations are actually of Clarias batrachus and which are of a different species. they're native to south east asia but it seems that only the population in java is considered true? idk it's very blurry. also yea they're from south east asia and usually in stuff like rivers and ponds and lakes and stuff. they do pretty well in oxygen-poor waters, no doubt due to their able to breathe air and stuff.

something interesting is their status as invasive species, such as their place in specifically florida in the usa. based on what i could find, they were accidentally introduced in the 1960's and have kinda just been there. additionally, while they could be considered threats to native species and maybe aquaculture farms, other sources say they're kinda just there. not really hurting anything to the point of endangering species (something other invasive species do, such as grey squirrels in the UK causing endangerment of red squirrels) but it's still illegal to import them and stuff.

this species can be seen in captivity; often you'll seen albino or marbled (pictured below) catfish in tanks, which is less common in the wild.

anyways that's this episode there's some other things i could talk about but i'd like for this to be like. a starting point. or something. if you think this species is cool i'd reccommend researching yourself! personally i've never seen this species in the wild so if you the reader have seen one then feel free to say what you though when you saw them

goodbye