Article © Marc Stabel, uploaded January 01, 2002.

Generally the book follows the familiar format of the series, dealing with each family and group of fishes in systematic order. There is one difference in this volume, the photo credits appear below the picture instead of in a seperate index.

While volume four aroused some gloomy "l-number overdose" thoughts, these turned out to be unnecessary. Volume 5 has it all! The catfish part is from page 227 up to and including page 460. Now we're talking. 15 families and again loads of Loricarids. What about pages 310 - 423? Well, Corys of course. But also Doradids, Aucheniterids, you name it. Am I prejudiced because most of the Auchenipterid pictures were taken of my fish? Perhaps, a little. But this book has it, as said before. It has mistakes too, like the Mystus on page 443 which is identyfied as Pimelodella steindachneri. Such things happen and with any luck it'll be corrected in the next edition. On the whole volume 5 contains a lot of catfish to please us.

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