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Sea Catfishes
Ariidae
The Ariidae or ariid catfish are a family of catfish that mainly live in marine waters with many freshwater and brackish water species. They are found worldwide in tropical to warm temperate zones. The family includes about 143 species.
The Ariidae are among the oldest known siluroid catfish known from fossil remains. Fossilized pectoral spines and skull bone fragments of ariid catfish are known from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian and Maastrichtian) of Argentina. The ariid relative Vorhisia is known from highly abundant fossil otoliths from Maastrichtian-aged nearshore marine formations of North America.
3 branches of this family, most-observed first · about 157 known species
Typical Sea Catfishes
subfamilyAriinae
Whiskered Sea Catfishes
subfamilyBagreinae
Bearded Sea Catfishes
subfamilyGaleichthyinae
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Ariidae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 69955.