PlanetCatfish.com

Hey Catfish people...this is my first post as I just registered as a user like 5 minutes ago...just had to say that I love the internet, and this site...simply awesome...

Anyhow, my question... I see and read a lot of information on Asian catfishes and see them for sale in stores. I have been checking out your site for a while, and have noticed a funny thing about catfishes from Asia. I see fish comming form indonesia, borneo, malaysia, thailand and india. My question is what about catfishes comming from the Philippines? Surely there has to be some cool endemics there. It consists of a ton of islands. Has any one gone out there to survey? Is it just too scary of a place to go??? Why aren't there species comming from there to our distributors out west? In fact what are the other fresh water fish like out there, are there bettas, loaches, gouramis? What about the lakes? I have had aquarium fish magazine for a decade...there is nothing about the freshwater fish from that region...
If anyone has the answer let me know...\
~Joe

Good question.

However, regarding catfish from nearby islands (Indonesia) nothing comes to mind

Perhaps the phillipines are not rich in catfish, but still other fishes would be interesting too

As far as I know, 1 or 2 of the islands are dangerous (terrorism/freedom fighters) the rest is pretty safe

Welcome to Planet catfish!

I think Bas Pels makes some good points & that some areas of the Philipines are unsafe.

Moreover, obscure catfishes are not the most popular of fishes (in the grand scheme of things) so collecting & transporting fish from this area for the trade is probably not high on the agenda of exporters, ie why bother collecting some small drab brown/grey catfish that will retail at a lot of money & probably won't get sold quickly when they could export something (for an example) like the galaxy rasbora, which is a stunningly patterned fish that has proved (disasterously)popular with huge demand.

That said there is always a small (ish) niche created by us catfish devotees! Personally i always try & go and see the latest new species when they come into the country, regardless of whether they are my faves or even if i would consider purchase. (I did this on Wednesday & will start a new thread with details when i get a chance)

According to Fishbase, there are at some endemic and native species of order "Siluriformes" [that is, catfish]:
Endemic:
Arius manillensis
Silurus palavanensis
Hito taytayensis
Plicofollis magatensis

Native:
Arius dispar
Cephalocassis manillensis
Several Clarias spp.
Neoarius leptaspis

--
Mats

The only true endemic freshwater catfish are species of Hito from Palawan (there is apparently more than one species of Hito on the island). There is also the elongate Clarias from Mindanao, which is currently thought to be the same species (C. nieuhofii) as from the rest of Southeast Asia.