Catfish: features and classification

Common catfish (European, river) is a large freshwater fish that does not have scales. This predator, inhabiting rivers and lakes, is the largest freshwater fish, inferior in size only beluga. True, it is a passing fish, which enters the rivers for spawning.

Classification:

• Class - Pisces (Pisces).
• Family - Siluroidea (Somovye).
• Detachment - Siluriformes (Cow-shaped).
• View - Esox lucius (Ordinary Som).
• Rod - Siluridae (Ordinary Soma).

Spread

The common catfish is common in the lakes and rivers of Europe, with the exception of Italy, Norway, Scotland, Spain and England. Representatives of the species are found in the south of Sweden and Finland. The area of the catfish in the south is limited by the coastal waters of the Aegean and Black Seas, in Asia it is restricted by the Aral Sea. The catfish, whose photo you can see below, dwells in the rivers flowing into the Baltic, Caspian and Black Seas.

European catfish - sedentary fish. Almost all his life he spends in the same hole, occasionally leaving it in search of food. Only during spawning, in spring, the catfish leaves their house and moves upstream, entering floodplain lakes and floodplain rivers for spawning.

Catfish do not tolerate turbid water at all. For this reason, these fish go to the mouth of the tributaries during floods - in search of clean water. For the same reason, in high water, he often prefers to stay in floodplain lakes or in the river floodplain.

Catfish: building

This fish is characterized by unusual external data. It is unlikely that someone will call him an outstanding handsome among the underwater inhabitants. A huge head weighs ¼ of the total mass of fish, a large mouth holds many sharp, but small teeth, disproportionately small eyes are close to the back of the head. A pair of rather long mustaches is on the upper lip, and on the chin are two pairs of small antennae. This is how the catfish looks. Appearance of this predator is not the most attractive.

The body in front of the round is strongly compressed in the back and sides. It smoothly passes into the caudal fin. Dorsal fin short, situated rather close to head. The anal, longer fin is connected to the caudal fin. At first glance, it seems that the huge head of the fish smoothly passes into the tail.

Color

The catfish is common, the description of which is often found in publications for amateur anglers, and the color is rather modest: the back is black, the belly is white with a yellowish tinge. Scales on the body are completely absent. It is thickly covered with mucus, which protects the catfish skin from parasites.

Size of catfish

At the beginning of this article, we have already said that the common catfish is a large fish, but many of our readers do not even suspect how much. Often the body length reaches four meters, and weight - one hundred and eighty kilograms. And this is not the limit. The specimens are much larger. Soma grows very quickly in the first five to six years. Gradually, their growth slows down, and by the age of eight, the fish weighs seventeen kilograms.

Instances having the maximum weight are extremely rare. For example, in the nineteenth century giants were recorded, more than three meters long and weighing 220 kg. In 1856 on the Dnieper was caught a catfish ordinary weighing about 400 kg and a length of almost five meters.

At present, specimens of no more than 1.6 meters are more common. For modern anglers, a great joy and great luck is considered to be the ability to catch a fish one and a half meters long and weighing more than twenty kilograms. The maximum weight of individuals of this species, registered in our time, is 2.78 meters long and weighs 144 kg.

Lifestyle

The common cat is a well-known home-stayed person: he does not migrate from his habitual habitat. Near it, as a rule, are the areas of spawning and feeding. These fish prefer a single way of life, in large flocks they gather in the cold season. They fit into deep holes and stop eating until the spring.

Common catfish are a large predator, leading a benthonic lifestyle. Most comfortable he feels in quiet parts of the reservoir. He needs pits, driftwood, caves.

Hunters catfish from ambush. Hiding in a secluded place, he makes a rapid throw and catches his victim. A shoal of catfish usually hunts in shallow water, where you can see the course of fish. They line up against the current, open the mouths and swallow flocks of small fishes. During the day, the common catfish lie in a hole or cave, and go hunting only at night or in the twilight. The victim is helped to find a mustache and sensitive skin.

In October-November, the common catfish ceases to eat and lies in the pits before the rest of the fish, with the head buried in the mud. Since at that time catfish do not pose any danger to other underwater inhabitants, other large fish are placed on them in the same holes for wintering, most often these are carp.

Food

Since catfish is a predator, it is quite natural that the basis of its diet is fish, and of all sizes and species. Large specimens, whose weight exceeds 30 kg, are rather clumsy and slow-moving creatures. They, as a rule, catch fry, which are drawn into the mouth along with water. Sometimes they, lurking in a secluded corner, entice a larger fish with a mustache that resembles worms under the water.

Large specimens hunt for all living creatures that float on the water: waterfowl and their chicks, small animals.

In addition, the catfish also feeds on:

• Cancers;
• Leeches;
• River mollusks;
• Crawls;
• Frogs.

Reproduction

Like most predatory fish, the catfish grows very quickly and becomes sexually mature in the fourth year of life. The ability to reproduce in this variety of catfish occurs when the fish reaches a size of about 60 cm and a weight of 3 kg. Such parameters are typical for a five-year-old catfish. Depending on the region in which the common catfish live, reproduction (spawning) can occur in summer or spring.

This process requires a water temperature of +17 ... + 20 ° C. Under favorable conditions, females of the European catfish are rushed by two portions of caviar - up to 30 thousand eggs. The heavier and larger the female, the more eggs she mows. The size of the eggs is no more than three millimeters.

Preparing for spawning, the female arranges a nest on the bottom of the lake or river. As a rule, this is a shallow shallow fossa, overgrown with aquatic plants. It is in shallow water, at a distance of not less than seventy centimeters from the surface of the water.
Caviar is large and sticky, so it instantly sticks to the walls and bottom of the nest.

Eggs develop very quickly - 3-10 days. From the eggs first larvae are formed. Then the yolk sac dissolves , and the fry appears, with a length of no more than 15 mm. All this time the male protects the nest. The young grow very fast, especially in the southern rivers. In the first year of life the male grows to 40 cm and collects about 500 grams. At the same time, a high percentage of deaths occurred at a young age. Up to a year, only 5% of the young live this type of catfish.

Life after spawning

After breeding, catfish return to habitual habitats - deep pits. The more inaccessible and deeper the pit, the more shelters and snags in it, the larger and larger the catfish living in it. In this case, the silence and the presence of shelters in the habitats of fish are more important than the depth of the reservoir. Young specimens weighing less than 15 kg swim at a depth of three meters, usually near dams, under hanging banks or under the roots of washed up trees.

Catfish: life expectancy

This fish belongs to the longevity. Scientists claim that they can live up to fifty years. But before such a venerable age, not every ordinary catfish survives. How many live these fish in the wild? The average life expectancy is (under favorable conditions) thirty-thirty-five years.

Catching catfish

This is a very fascinating process for both professional fishermen and amateurs. The best time to catch this fish is summer. Good biting is in windless warm weather after sunset and before dawn. Feeding catfish constantly, but not with the same greed. At dawn, before sunrise and at night the catches quite actively. And if a little rain drizzles, catching is possible throughout the day.

Gear is more advantageous to throw not over the pit itself, but in the way of night hunting catfish. Usually it goes the same way. The best place is the ruts, which are especially rich in zhivans, which can be any fish, characterized by long-lasting vitality. An excellent nozzle, according to fishermen, is a loach, but sometimes the catfish tears it off, because the fish string on the lips.

Often a large fish is used as a bait, although this is not entirely justified. Guts of fish and poultry, leeches, fried birds, a piece of catfish meat are not interested. But the smell of wool or feathers for this fish is very attractive. For bait, you can use crayfish during their molting, when the shell is very soft.

Perhaps the most favorite treat of catfish is the frog. This preference is based on the most interesting way of catching - clapping. To catch catfish, donkeys are used, throwing the bait into the supposed places of feeding this fish.

The rod must be tied to the hammered cola in the ground or strong branches, since biting even four-kilogram specimens is very sharp and in seconds the rod breaks. Experienced anglers say that the bite can be so powerful that the fishing rod (test 190 g) 1.9 meters long, like a spring, flies into the air and a completely new monolayer (0.3) breaks at the same instant.

Economic importance

Catfish is a commercial species. Its value lies not only in tender and fatty meat: from the swim bladder of this fish received a magnificent glue, and in ancient times washed catfish skin was used as "glasses" in the windows. In the thirties of the last century, its catches in some water bodies reached 4.2 thousand tons, but today they have significantly decreased.

Security status

Unfortunately, due to uncontrolled fishing, including poaching, almost everywhere the number of catfish fell. In many reservoirs, where he used to live in large quantities, the catfish became a rare visitor. In this regard, in many regions it is under protection. On the edges of the range, the catfish is especially rare, for example, in Karelia, in 1995, it was listed in the Red Book as an endangered rare species.