Confirmation?

Hello everybody,

I just returned from a week long vacation to the eastern coast of North Carolina. I stayed along the Outer Banks at a cottage right on the Currituck Sound (a large salt marsh). I managed to catch quite a few new (new to me) and exciting species during my time there. On the last day of catching fish and taking photographs, my memory card became corrupted. I'm enduring the arduous task of reclaiming the photos from the memory card (if anyone has any suggestions as to how this should be done, I'd appreciate it!). After the malfunction, I was able to borrow my girlfriend's camera to photograph the last three fish I had in my bucket. Along with an American Eel (Anguilla rostrata), a Rainwater Kilifish (Lucania parva), I had this catfish sp. My first inclination is that it is a White Catfish (Ameiurus catus). The white chin barbels, along with an anal fin ray count of 21, seem pretty diagnostic. Can anyone confirm this ID? Or, can anyone suggest any possibilities that I may have overlooked?



Thanks,
Nate

thats it your fish is a white catfish for sure large head white chin wiskers =unforked caudal fins cat. largest of the bullheads but it is never called a bullhead for some reason and it is native to the area you caught it in.
nice little fish how many did you get?

Nate does your 21 include rudimentary rays? (19) 22-24 (25) are the anal ray counts we list that include rudimentary rays. I'd call it a white cat.

thats it your fish is a white catfish for sure large head white chin wiskers =unforked caudal fins cat. largest of the bullheads but it is never called a bullhead for some reason and it is native to the area you caught it in.
nice little fish how many did you get?

Thanks. I only caught this one. It was in a thick bed of Valsineria sp. during low tide.

Nate does your 21 include rudimentary rays? (19) 22-24 (25) are the anal ray counts we list that include rudimentary rays. I'd call it a white cat.

The 21 does include rudimentary rays. If I see a semblance of a ray, I count it.

What other kind of catfish could have a caudal like that? I have no experience with white cats, but it certainly isn't any of the familiar Ameiurus or Ictalurus I'm used to.

as it pertains to the memory card,

if you can see the card when you plug the camera into you PC try the following:
- goto my computer and right click on the card (it may be listed as a drive)
- select properties from the list
- select the tools tab
- select error checking from the tools tab

My memory card in my blackberry has been corrupted several times and i have been able to fix it with all my files intact.

my pc is running xp, win 7 or vista my be different

as it pertains to the memory card,

if you can see the card when you plug the camera into you PC try the following:
- goto my computer and right click on the card (it may be listed as a drive)
- select properties from the list
- select the tools tab
- select error checking from the tools tab

My memory card in my blackberry has been corrupted several times and i have been able to fix it with all my files intact.

my pc is running xp, win 7 or vista my be different

THANK YOU! I will definitely try this. At this point I'm pretty desperate to save the photos. I have about 320 fish pictures on there...including some of a fish that I could not even ID to the family level!

What other kind of catfish could have a caudal like that? I have no experience with white cats, but it certainly isn't any of the familiar Ameiurus or Ictalurus I'm used to.

Newt,
the channel catfish,headwater catfish and the yaqui catfish just to name a few. but some of these fish are from the other coast.i have seen and sampled fish from the south west states that look like a channel x white or maybe a balsas x white or they may have been headwater catfish just a little out of there range, but i was young and did not know my fish as well then.
a channel catfish is the only other likely catfish in his sample area but its caudal tips beyond the fork are pointed rather then rounded like the white catfish.
the clues i used for this fish was range as its native area.
its large head,body has no spots,top lob is longer then the bottom.
but i have seen many channel catfish without spots as well.
this fish sure looks like the white catfish to me.
newt here is a very good link for catfish ID'S
edit wrong site. fixed.
http://tolweb.org/Ictalurus/68925

I wish some time some one could tell me why some fish look like other fish but are in a different genera as the white catfish is in ameiurus
but looks like fish from gerera ictalurus.

Edited by CATfishTONY, 10 August 2010 - 05:11 PM.