Catfish are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia, the wels catfish of Eurasia, and the piraíba of South America, to detritivores, and even to a tiny parasitic species commonly called the candiru, Vandellia cirrhosa. Neither the armour-plated types nor the naked types have scales. Despite their name, not all catfish have prominent barbels or "whiskers". Members of the Siluriformes order are defined by features of the skull and swimbladder. Catfish are of considerable commercial importance; many of the larger species are farmed or fished for food. Many of the smaller species, particularly the genus Corydoras, are important in the aquarium hobby. Many catfish are nocturnal, but others are crepuscular or diurnal.
Loricariidae is the largest family of catfish, with over 90 genera and just over 680 species. Loricariids originate from freshwater habitats of Costa Rica, Panama, and tropical and subtropical South America. These fish are noted for the bony plates covering their bodies and their suckermouths. Several genera are sold as "plecos", notably the suckermouth catfish, Hypostomus plecostomus, and are popular as aquarium fish.
Acanthicus is a genus of large, South American suckermouth armored catfishes native to the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and possibly in Guyana. The name Acanthicus is derived from the Greek, akanthikos meaning thorny, spiny. Fish of this genus are known as lyre-tail plecos. These species are found in large rivers, primarily in areas with a rocky bottom and a moderate or strong current.
Loricarioidea is a superfamily of catfishes. It contains the six families Trichomycteridae, Nematogenyiidae, Callichthyidae, Scoloplacidae, Astroblepidae, and Loricariidae. Some schemes also include Amphiliidae. This superfamily, including Amphiliidae, includes about 156 genera and 1,187 species.
Corymbophanes is a genus of armored catfish native to South America where they are only known from Guyana. Corymbophanes was originally placed in its own tribe Corymbophanini, but the first comprehensive molecular phylogenetic analysis of the subfamily Hypostominae found Corymbophanes to be nested within the tribe Ancistrini.
Diplomystidae, the velvet catfishes, are a family of primitive catfishes endemic to freshwater habitats in Argentina and Chile in southern South America. It currently contains six species in two genera.
Lasiancistrus is a genus of suckermouth armored catfishes. They are native to South America and Panama.
Pseudolithoxus is a genus of suckermouth armored catfishes with five described species from the basins of the Orinoco, Casiquiare and upper Rio Negro in Venezuela. Additionally, a possibly undescribed species is known from the Trombetas and Nhamundá rivers in Brazil.
Axelrodichthys is an extinct genus of mawsoniid coelacanth from the Cretaceous of Africa, North and South America, and Europe. Several species are known, the remains of which were discovered in the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of Brazil, North Africa, and possibly Mexico, as well as in the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco (Cenomanian), Madagascar and France. The Axelrodichthys of the Lower Cretaceous frequented both brackish and coastal marine waters while the most recent species lived exclusively in fresh waters. The French specimens are the last known fresh water coelacanths. Most of the species of this genus reached 1 metre to 2 metres in length. Axelrodichthys was named in 1986 by John G. Maisey in honor of the American ichthyologist Herbert R. Axelrod.
Mawsonia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish. It is amongst the largest of all coelacanths, with one quadrate specimen possibly belonging to an individual measuring 5.3 metres in length. It lived in freshwater and brackish environments from the late Jurassic to the mid-Cretaceous of South America, eastern North America, and Africa. Mawsonia was first described by British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward in 1907.
The Kem Kem Group is a geological group in the Kem Kem region of eastern Morocco, whose strata date back to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. Its strata are subdivided into two geological formations, with the lower Ifezouane Formation and the upper Aoufous Formation used for the strata on the eastern side of the Atlas Mountains (Tinghir), with the Gara Sbaa Formation and Douira Formation used in the southern Tafilalt region. It is exposed on an escarpment along the Algeria–Morocco border.
Calamopleurus is an prehistoric genus of marine holostean ray-finned fish from the Early Cretaceous of South America and northern Africa. It was a relative of the modern bowfin, with both belonging to the family Amiidae.
Corydoras revelatus is an extinct species of callichthyid catfish known from a single specimen found in Late Paleocene strata of the Mais Gordo Formation in Salta, Argentina. According to chronological dating of the strata, the fossil specimen is about 58.2–58.5 million years old.
Gualicho is a genus of theropod dinosaur. The type species is Gualicho shinyae. It lived in what is now northern Patagonia, on what was then a South American island continent split off from the supercontinent Gondwana. The fossils were found in the Huincul Formation, dating to the late Cenomanian-early Turonian age of the upper Cretaceous Period, around 91 million years ago.
Concavotectum is an extinct genus of freshwater plethodid ray-finned fish that lived during the Cenomanian in Morocco and possibly Egypt. It was discovered and named in 2008 and is known from a single well preserved hand-sized skull and a few isolated vertebrae discovered in the Kem Kem Group. The type species, C. moroccensis, was named in 2008 and described in 2010.
Yaluwak is a genus of armored catfish native to South America where they are only known from Guyana, containing only a single species Yaluwak primus. It was first described in a 2020 study and placed within the tribe Ancistrini.
Obaichthyidae is an extinct family of ginglymodian ray-finned fish that lived in what is now Africa and South America during the Cretaceous period. It was erected in 2010 by Lance Grande to include the genera Dentilepisosteus and Obaichthys. In 2012, it was defined as a stem-based taxon containing all taxa more closely related to Obaichthys than to the genera Lepisosteus, Pliodetes or Lepidotes. Afrocascudo, initially described as the earliest known armored catfish, might represent a juvenile obaichthyid, possibly a junior synonym of Obaichthys, though this has been disputed based on the complete ossification of the bones indicating full maturity and the absence of important holostean characters.
Serenoichthys is an extinct genus of small bichir from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of southeastern Morocco. The genus is monotypic, the type and only species being Serenoichthys kemkemensis. Only known at first from postcranial skeletons, complete specimens were later discovered.
Grandemarinus is an extinct genus of gar from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco. It contains a single species, G. gherisensis. The genus name honors evolutionary biologist Lance Grande and references the species' apparent marine nature, while the specific epithet references Oued Gheris, a wadi near the type locality.
This list of fossil fish research presented in 2024 is a list of new taxa of jawless vertebrates, placoderms, acanthodians, fossil cartilaginous fishes, bony fishes, and other fishes that were described during the year, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to paleoichthyology that occurred in 2024.
