Wednesday March 19, 2025
Discover Wildlife —
Thick-bodied and marbled with brown and black, these very special catfish combine attributes of two groups of ichthy-icons: the climbing catfish of the family Astroblepidae and the armoured catfish of the family Loricariidae.
The species is an exemplar of mountain fish skills – and the potential missing link in the tale of how all these weird fish got this way.
To the scientists who began studying it in the 1990s, L. wahari was initially a puzzle. It didn’t help that their first sample was delivered in rough shape, as it had been collected by people who planned to eat it – one scientist said it looked like it had been run over by a truck.
The fish had bony armour protecting its head and tail, like an armoured catfish. These rigid plates, called scutes, are much like the interlocking pieces of a turtle’s shell.