Asian Catfish at Beijing market...

Jorge · Post by **Jorge** » 01 Jun 2005, 12:10

I have been recently in Beijing, and I've taken some pics at the central market of some fishes for human consumption

any idea what species are these catfish?

Post by **Silurus** » 01 Jun 2005, 12:16

Title should have been "African catfish at Beijing market". These things are everywhere.

pturley · Post by **pturley** » 01 Jun 2005, 17:45

Silurus Wrote:

Title should have been "African catfish at Beijing market". These things are everywhere.

Clarias catfish certainly are... ...including in the tanks of a LFS here in CLEVELAND! (C. batrachus actually in this case!) A little contraband anyone?

beng · Post by **beng** » 02 Jun 2005, 17:28

Silurus wrote:
Clarias gariepinus

Title should have been "African catfish at Beijing market". These things are everywhere.

I have also seen dead ones on sale in a fishmonger's in London Chinatown, behind Leicester Square.

I saw a large Clariid, at least a metre long, swimming lazily along the bottom of a very clear spring water pool, in some ornamental gardens around a famous spring in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province. I asked one of the locals about it, who assured me it was native to China and told me its name in Chinese, which i have forgotten, but i do not know if they knew much about catfish.

Now that photo from the Beijing market makes me wonder if they farm them locally in China. They do grow them in Europe in indoor tanks.

The things is though, the winter temperature in Jinan in January averages -5C, i wonder how the catfish survives. Maybe the spring is geothermally heated? The spring water really gushes out with a lot of force and volume.

Besides the large catfish there were loads of koi and some Chinese snakeheads, didn't see any cichlids there.

In last century the fish that you might say "these things are everywhere" about was Oreochromis tilapias, which were spread all around the tropics for aquaculture, now it is another African species, the catfish. Africa seems to be a major source of aquaculture-for-food food species.

Perhaps the locals in Jinan identified it as a native species because they do have a native Clariid and Clarias species all look very similar.

Any news about the status of gariepinus in Florida?

In Singapore gariepinus is known from Nanyang lake, where it is stocked on purpose for angling, the freshwater Pandan canal, possibly another canal system that is tidal and brackish, and at least one of the reservoirs where individuals of up to 20 lbs have been caught.

Anglers sometimes illegally use live Clariid catfish as bait when fishing in the reservoirs, and it is possible it was introduced that way. Another possibility is that it was released there for religious reasons. It is really amazing the kind and quantity of non-native species you can find in the wild in Singapore these days, its like one huge uncontrolled ecological experiment.