PlanetCatfish.com

I've spent hours looking through your site here till my eyes were going buggy. And I can not identify this darn fish

It is about three inches long and was sold to me as a Whale Cat. But the only Whale Cats I've ever heard of are those ugly pinkish white sea monster looking things. This looks nothing like them at all.

Sorry for the lousy pics, he's incredibly hard to take pics of since he hides all the time. And the light in this tank is kind of dim to begin with. I even tried taking him out of the water to get his pic and he ended up looking all shiny and slimy and more like a leach than a catfish. If anyone can tell me what he is I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,Katt

Hi there,

The members of the family Cetopsidae are commonly referred to as whale cats. However, your little fella doesn't really strike me as one. Do any of the pictures in the Cat-eLog under Cetopsidae look like it?

Rusty

Your fish is Rita rita, which are also sold as whale cats.

I have trouble seeing a fish, let alone Rita rita, in your pictures! Silurus must have his night vision goggles on. However, Rita species are referred to as "whale cats". A very rare and interesting fish, if that's what you have. Take good care of it!

Dinyar

He is really a cool looking Cat.

rofl i find the sentence

Will eat smaller fishes.

extremely funny in the elog entry...hmm Arapaima gigas is a bigger fish...how long till the Rita reaches 50 cm - 1 meter?

He does look like that Rita rita cat, but he's got a rounded dorsal fin instead. But that might be close.

Now that he's settled into his new tank, I got a couple of slightly better pics of him.

Good pic of his tail. It's slightly forked but with short rounded lobes.

Here he is from the front.

And two from the side. One farther away....

And a blurry closeup....

Any more ideas of what he might be? Thanks again, Katt

The "rounded" dorsal fin is probably due to damage (fin-nipping) from tankmates. No mistaking the broad rounded head and slate gray body. Rita rita alright.

Kewl! So he's really rare and unusual. I can't imagine where the LFS even got him from. There was a whole tankful of them when I got him a few months ago. He hasn't grown very much yet for a huge growing cat. Nothing like a SA RedTail anyway.

Do they grow fast? And is he really going to grow to four foot long, or is that a really big size for them?

I'll have to look for some good info on them. Thanks for the identification.

I can't imagine where the LFS even got him from

Rita rita are regularly exported out of India as aquarium fish. Guess you were at the right place at the right time.
They do get to 5 feet, although my limited experience with them is that they are not particularly fast growers. Maybe 3-4" per year.

That sounds about right for what he's doing so far. I got a Lined Pim Cat the same day. They were both the same size when I bought them and now the Pim Cat is double his size.

It's good they don't grow very fast. I'll actually be able to keep this guy for a while before he outgrows my tank and has to go in the pond.

Silurus wrote:Rita rita are regularly exported out of India as aquarium fish. Guess you were at the right place at the right time.

Funny, I've been looking for Indian catfish in the US for a decade and never seen any. Guess I was in the wrong places all the time.

Dinyar

PS: By the way, I hope that pond of yours is in Florida. Rita is a tropical fish.

I have an outdoor pond, but he can't go in there since the winters here in Northeast Pennsylvania get kinda chilly. I'm eventually building anothe rpond in my basement in the hopes of being able to keep another RedTail Cat and some Pacu and grow them to full size. That's a couple of years in the future though. But if this guy continues to grow as painfully slowly as he has so far, I've got plenty of time.