The walking catfish is a species of freshwater airbreathing catfish native to Southeast Asia. It is named for its ability to "walk" and wiggle across dry land, to find food or suitable environments. While it does not truly walk as most bipeds or quadrupeds do, it can use its pectoral fins to keep it upright as it makes a wiggling motion with snakelike movements to traverse land. This fish normally lives in slow-moving and often stagnant waters in ponds, swamps, streams, and rivers, as well as in flooded rice paddies, or temporary pools that may dry up. When this happens, its "walking" skill allows the fish to move to other aquatic environments. Considerable taxonomic confusion surrounds this species and it has frequently been confused with other close relatives. One main distinction between the walking catfish and the native North American ictalurid catfish with which it sometimes is confused, is that the walking catfish lacks an adipose fin. It can survive 18 hours out of water.
Walking catfish
Lateral view. Notice small white lateral spots
Head dorsal view.
Air-breathing organ of walking catfish
Clarias gariepinus or African sharptooth catfish is a species of catfish of the family Clariidae, the airbreathing catfishes.
Clarias gariepinus
Jumping upstream in a branch of the Sabie River, Kruger N.P.
Specimen from Bogor, Indonesia (possibly cultivated)
Juvenile specimens caught in the sewers of Rishon LeZion, Israel