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Home > Synodontis sorex the Scissortail Squeaker catfish from Nigeria
Synodontis sorex the Scissortail Squeaker catfish from Nigeria
Synodontis sorex a Scissortail Squeaker catfish from Nigeria
Two weeks ago we presented to you some species of catfish we imported from Nigeria. This wonderful shipment contained also some by-catches, which are species that were sent erroneously along with the ordered specimens.
One of these by-catches came with Synodontis clarias. It was the extremely rarely imported species Synodontis sorex. This " Scissortail-Squeaker" has a very unusaul shape of the mouth that looks rather like the suckermouth of a South American Ancistrus than like the typical mouth of a Synodontis. In fact, S. sorex is able to feed very effective from plain surfaces like stones, roots, plant leaves etc.
The animals - a total of seven individuals - were given to a specialist for Synodontis who keeps a very large aquarium. They showed much more schooling behavior than we are used to see in Synodontis. S. sorex is said to attain a maximum length of more than 40 cm. Adults are uniformly grey and very deep bodied. This is one of the reasons why we gave the fish to a specialist: we are very curious how our fish will develop!!
Synodontis sorex is listed with the IUCN Red List of Endangered species due to this species being harvested for human consumption. The threat present for the future is the overexploitation from fishing threatens this species in western Africa.
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