Happy Monday everyone! As I said, now that marching band is over for the season, I am restarting fish of the day! Today we will be focusing on the striped eel catfish! Personally, one of my favorite kinds of catfish, simply due to how cool they look.
Known by the scientific name of Plotosus lineatus, the striped catfish eel is a species of, surprisingly, eeltail catfish (otherwise known as the Plotsidea family) They are a distinct family of the catfish class due to their tails elongated, eel like structure. The tail fin is joined to the caudal and dorsal fin, forming one continuous fin. Where many catfish are known for their body armour, fish within this family are known to have spines along its back (otherwise known as dorsal spines). Within the Plotsidea family this means that these catfish can give a rather painful sting, however, within the case of the striped eel catfish these dorsal spines are highly venomous, and may cause death.
Like almost all catfish, the striped eel catfish are bottom feeders found native in the Indian ocean and Western Pacific as well as some freshwaters in Eastern Africa. They eat "crustaceans, molluscs, polychaete worms - and the occasional fish" as fishesofaustralia.net.au put it. Around Australia they are said to have a reef association. The species can also be found in the Mediterranean as an invasive species that traveled through the Suez Canal, and thus has been marked by the European Union as a species that can not be "imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or internationally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.". This means Britain, a non European Union affiliated country, is free game for bringing striped eel catfish with intention to release as an invasive species (so long as you ignore that you are commiting environmental terrorism, it would be funny)
The striped eel catfish can reach lengths of 32 cm (13 inches!) long. These fish are often known for the large (about 100 fish!) schooling balls juvenile fish make, as they make mesmerizing patterns while swimming. I will attempt to link videos of this, but I am unsure how accessible they will be. Adults tend to separate from their younger schools as solitary fish, or find themselves in small groups of around 20. During the day these fish can be found hiding under ledges
It has been found that along Mediterranean striped eel catfish there has been no mortality rate from the venomous spines, whereas those found within the Indian ocean have what may be a stronger venom.
WARNING: Striped Eel Catfish reported in Cypriot waters
WARNING: Striped Eel Catfish reported in Cypriot waters
Another nail in the coffin? New alien invasive fish in Cypriot waters: Striped Eel Catfish
Readers Mail….
Dr. Damla Beton….
More than 1000 alien fish species have invaded the Mediterranean via Suez Canal causing sweeping ecological changes. Among them, poisonous species like lionfish and pufferfish have received attention for hindering fishing economies, causing injury, or damaging fishing gear,…
Just like the last time, all animals will behave as they would in nature (or as close to for all extinct species) the only difference is that your defender(s) will avoid causing friendly fire. However, any attempt to harm and/or eat your defender(s) will cause them to turn on you.
Also thought it wise to specify specific options to avoid confusion and people trying to bend the rules. (Sorry if I’m sounding like a party-pooper)
I wanna see your head canons on what their fins would look like! (I can imagine everytime they feel happy and warm their tail glows)
Authors note: These are my personal headcannons for the mermaid AU. I might change them in latter stories but I feel pretty comfy with where they are right now. They where all just sorta ideas I have floating around but I hope you like them! Also I actually had the idea of their eyes glowing when they get happy but decided not to add it, so your not that far off with the tail ♡
Shoji has eight silver colored tentacles with a dark blue under belly. His suction cups are a slightly lighter blue and his beak is the same color as the top. I can imagine him being a bit self conscious about it and usually keeping it covered up by the tentacles, kinda like his mask in the anime.
Koda has motly white tail with red details. His tail actually resembles a seahorse but much bigger to support all of his weight above water
Sato's tail is a a soft brown color with black and white stripes. I imagine his tail with a sorta puffy feel to, not supper puffy though, kinda like puffy stickers. It resembles a sort of clownfish look with brown instead of orange.
Ida has a dark blue tail with one of his bottom fins being made out of metal parts, think like toothless from HTTYD. I imagine he would have made it either himself or with Momo's help.
Sero has a long black tail with white puffy streak all around it. The streaks look a lot like tape, to match his original universes quirk.
Shoto has a half red half white tail that colors switch places with his hair. I imagine that he might have a few darker spots on his tail from his past.
Momo has a red tail with beutifull yellow fins at the bottom. It's a pretty basic mermaid tail but it has a little of a rough texture than the original sleek mermaid scales.
Bakugo has a ash blonde tail with large swirls of orange and black. His tail kinda resembles a catfish in all ways except color.
Kirishima has a red tail with specks of black that resembles a shark. I would imagine that Kirishima would sorta be the protection of the pack so his tail would have scars and possibly a healed bite mark out of one of the fins.
Ojiro has a thick skin colored tail with a small tuff of fins at the end. It kinda looks like his tail from the original universe but is more smooth.
Aoyama has a shiny white and yellow tail that has a sort of sequins look to it. He has the ability to change the colors to fit in with the environment but he says that these colors make him ✨️sparkle✨️ more.
Denki had a bright electric yellow tail with little black marking that happen to look like lightning bolts. His tail takes resemblance to a electric eel.
Izuku's tail is a beutifull emerald green with freckles of red and white. The fins are a bit longer than the average mer-man, it is a pretty yellow and looks slightly tattered and torn (Probably from how reckless he is).
Mina, as stated before, has a glimmering pink and yellow tail. Her tail is very strong and has some visible muscles, but not a ton.
Tokoyami had a dark black tail with a white under belly, like a orca.
Uraraka has a pretty white tail with large splotches of pink and brown, it kinda looks like boba.
Jiro had a shorter but strong looking purple tail with flowy fins that resemble earphone jacks hanging from her side.
Hagakure has a long almost clear tail that resembled that of a jelly fish.
Tsu has a beutifull green tail with black swirly stripes all along it. It resembles that of a tadpole. Her type of mermaid is supposed to grow legs but hers somehow stayed like a tadpoles.
I found out about four members of Arlong's crew that have names, they are basically background characters but I thought that they were neat and wanted to share with you in case you didn't know.
Pisaro - Ocean sunfish fishman. He's the musician and plays maracas.
Kaneshiro - Goldfish fishman and the shipwright.
Take - Carp fishman and the commander of parties.
Shioyaki - Salmon fishman. He's the head of banquets.
They all have their own wiki page if you want to see more about them.
Thanks anon! For everyone else,
Pisaro, Kaneshiro, Take, Shioyaki
and here are a couple of unnamed members
concept art, some of which made it to the final draft in some capacity
Top row: (pretty sure that kanji probably says goldfish? these are the types of fish, not their names as far as i can tell), Namazu (giant catfish), Nekozame (catfish), Fugu (pufferfish), Ishidai (striped beakfish), Sake (salmon)
Them two dudes: Tai (a seambream, curiously looks like Chuu tho), *squints dear god Oda ur handwriting) Matoudai (John Dory) (ty @patchiefrog !)
Middle Row: Umiushi (Japanese sea slug), Kinmedai (splendid alphonsino), ?Ankou (? I can't tell if that's a character or scratched out, but ankou means monkfish), Utsubo (moray eel), Haze (goby) Manbou (ocean sunfish)
Bottom Row: Kajiki (oda bro your HANDWRITING) (blue marlin), Yakuro????su i have no idea what this says. It's in hiragana like Nekozame was but I'm having trouble deciphering the middle characters lol, Tachiuo (largehead hairtail/beltfish, which is part of the "cutlassfish" family which sounds cool as hell), Karei (dab), (*dabs*), ......*squints* I'm...too tired to figure out the last one lmao
also fuckin...i was trying to find a pic of the dude with the multi colored hair (the beakfish guy) bc he was in both the manga/anime and the live action but all i can find is this fuckin picture from reddit bc im too lazy to go grab screenshots