Heterobranchus

Genus of fishes

Heterobranchus

Temporal range: Lower Pliocene \- Recent

Heterobranchus isopterus
Scientific classification
Domain:  | Eukaryota
Kingdom:  | Animalia
Phylum:  | Chordata
Class:  | Actinopterygii
Order:  | Siluriformes
Family:  | Clariidae
Genus:  | Heterobranchus
É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1809
Type species
Heterobranchus bidorsalis

É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1809

Species

6, see text.

Heterobranchus is a genus of airbreathing catfishes native to Africa. However, H. palaeindicus, an extinct species of the genus, was discovered in the Siwalik Hills, India, dating to the Lower Pliocene.[1]

Depending on the exact species involved, fish of this genus reach from 64 to 150 cm (25 to 59 in) with H. longifilis being the largest strict freshwater fish in southern Africa, reaching 150 cm (59 in) SL and weighing up to 55 kg (121 lb).[2]

## Species[edit]

This genus contains four recent and two fossil species:[1][2]

### Recent species[edit]

* Heterobranchus bidorsalis É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1809 (African Catfish)
* Heterobranchus boulengeri (Pellegrin, 1922)
* Heterobranchus isopterus (Bleeker, 1863) —found in West Africa—
* Heterobranchus longifilis Valenciennes, 1840 (Vundu; Sampa)

### Fossil species[edit]

* †Heterobranchus austriacus (Thenius, 1952)
* †Heterobranchus palaeindicus (Lydekker, 1886)

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Ferraris, Carl J. Jr. (2007). "Checklist of catfishes, recent and fossil (Osteichthyes: Siluriformes), and catalogue of siluriform primary types" (PDF). Zootaxa. 1418: 1–628.
2. ^ a b Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2011). Species of Heterobranchus in FishBase. December 2011 version.

Taxon identifiers|

* Wikidata: Q755022
* BOLD: 498879
* CoL: 4W9V
* EoL: 24699
* Fossilworks: 263684
* GBIF: 2342416
* iNaturalist: 88866
* ITIS: 639018
* NCBI: 103209
* WoRMS: 269389

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