#walking catfish

catfish all by itself

og photo:

noob vers:

Fish that crawls outta the water just for the heck of it

You get a Walking Catfish

It's not every day you see a fish walking on land! However, when the streams and ponds of the airbreathing catfish dry up, this species will readily wriggle across the jungle floor in search of a new home. Thanks to a special organ called a labyrinth organ, they are able to breathe air and can remain outside of water for several hours provided they stay moist.

(Image: A Java walking catfish, Clarias batrachus, by sdickman via iNaturalist)

Catfish!

These fuckers! When it rains heavily, they waddle onto the land looking for new habitats! Like they're walking! They can survive for a while out of water (google says 18 hours) and truly are a sight to behold!

Walking Catfish (Clarias batrachus)

Family: Airbreathing Catfish Family (Clariidae)

IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern

Native to the island of Jawa in Indonesia but also present as an invasive species across much of southern Asia and North America, the Walking Catfish is an adaptable species found in a wide range of freshwater habitats, but does best in stagnant, oxygen-poor pools where its ability to extract oxygen from air using a frilly, vaguely lung-like internal respiratory organ connected to its gills known as a suprabranchial organ allows it to live where most competing fish species cannot, increasing it's ability to access the aquatic plants, invertebrates and occasional small vertebrates on which it feeds. As pools inhabited by members of this species are often stagnant or small it is not unusual for them to dry up, and to account for this Walking Catfishes, as their name suggests, have developed the ability to slowly crawl across dry land using a set of tough spines on their pectoral fins, using this along with their ability to breathe air to survive out of water for up to 18 hours, allowing them to travel to new pools.

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