Armoured Catfish

About

The Giraffe Catfish (Auchenoglanis occidentalis) is one of those fish that immediately raises eyebrows when someone asks about it at a club meeting. Partly because of its bold, reticulated patterning that genuinely resembles giraffe markings, and partly because of just how large it gets. Adults regularly reach well over two feet, which means this is a species only serious large-tank keepers should consider. It ranges across a huge swath of Africa, turning up in West African river systems, the Congo drainage, the Nile, the Chad basin, and Lake Tanganyika. Essentially wherever there are large, open waterbodies with soft, muddy substrates in the shallows. In the wild it roots through the bottom sediment for whatever it can find: detritus, insect larvae, worms, mollusks, seeds, and plankton. That same opportunistic approach to eating makes it straightforward to feed in captivity. Despite its size, this species is genuinely peaceful and sociable, getting along well in a large community of similarly sized fish. One remarkable footnote from the wild: males guard the nest, and other catfish species have been documented sneaking their own eggs into that nest and letting the Giraffe Catfish do the parenting work. An unusual case of cross-species nest parasitism.