Red-tailed Catfish Phractocephalus hemioliopterus

The Red-tailed Catfish is one of the long-whiskered catfish, native to rivers, large streams, lakes and flooded forest of much of the Amazon, Orinoco and Essequibo basins in Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. The name "catfish" comes from such sensory whiskers or barbels.

The body colour is browner when young and usually blacker with age, with white (or pale yellow) sides/undersides, the red tail after which it is named and sometimes a red-edged dorsal fin. It can grow to 1.8 metres long but typically grows to under 1.5 metres.

It has 6 whiskers (barbels), two on the upper jaw and four on the lower. These help it to find its food of crabs, fish (dead and alive) and fruit in the dark waters.

The cat's whiskers. There is an Asian fish from the Mekong basin called the Redtail Catfish, Hemibagrus wyckioides, growing to some 1.3 metres long, but a totally different family.