Bagarius bagarius

Bagarius: from 'Vaghari', a local name in Calcutta (Kolkata).

bagarius: as above.

Restricted to the Indian subcontinent, in the Indus River drainage in Pakistan, the Ganges and Brahmaputra drainages in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and the rivers of peninsular India.

Bagarius from Myanmar east to Indochina, the Malay Peninsula and the Greater Sunda Islands belong to other species (see 'Notes').

Type locality is 'Ganges River, India'. Its synonym Bagrus yarrelli was described from 'Mota Mola at Poona, Deccan, India', referring to the Mutha Mula River at Pune, Maharashtra state, western India.

Mostly collected from larger river channels and typically associated with fast-flowing, turbulent rapids where it takes shelter among boulders and large rocks.

Adults perform seasonal spawning migrations when rivers swell and become turbid.

Suitable only for public installations or the very largest, highly-specialised private aquaria.

Prefers dim lighting and access to refuges in the form of driftwood, large rocks or lengths of plastic piping.

A large, mature filter system, rigorous maintenance regime comprising weekly water changes of 50-70% tank volume, and provision of highly-oxygenated water with plenty of movement should be considered mandatory.

An obligate predator feeding on smaller fishes, amphibians, crustaceans and other invertebrates in nature but in most cases adapting well to dead alternatives in captivity.

Young fish can be offered chironomid larvae (bloodworm), small earthworms, chopped prawn and suchlike while adults will accept strips of fish flesh, whole prawns/shrimp, mussels, live river shrimp, larger earthworms, etc.

This species should not be fed mammalian or avian meat such as beef heart or chicken since some of the lipids contained in these cannot be properly metabolised by the fish and may cause excess fat deposits and even organ degeneration.

Similarly there is no benefit in the use of 'feeder' fish such as livebearers or small goldfish which carry with them the risk of parasite or disease introduction and at any rate tend not have a high nutritional value unless properly conditioned beforehand.

Best maintained alone.

Unrecorded.

This species is also known as the 'giant devil catfish' and 'sand shark', and is fished for food across much of its range.

It is clearly unsuitable for the home aquarium given its eventual size and natural behaviour.

Ng & Kottelat (2021) restricted B. bagarius to the Indian subcontinent and treated Bagrus yarrelli Sykes 1839, Pimelodus platespogon and Pimelodus carnaticus as its junior synonyms. The giant goonch of the subcontinent, long listed as B. yarrelli, is therefore this species, and it can reach 2 metres in length.

The large Southeast Asian fish sold as B. yarrelli is B. lica Volz, 1903, which ranges from the Mae Khlong to the Dong Nai drainages and across the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java.

The name B. bagarius was also widely applied to a relatively small species that is said to reach only 200 mm8 in SL and is common in much of Indochina. That fish is B. vegrandis, from the Chao Phraya and Mekong, described in the same paper. B. suchus and B. rutilus are separate species.

The genus Bagarius is distinguished from all other genera in the family Sisoridae by having markedly heterodont teeth in the lower jaw. Teeth are present in two or three outer rows of relatively numerous, close-set conical teeth, and one or two inner rows of less numerous, widely separated, and much larger conical teeth (vs. dentition of the lower jaw consisting of only small conical teeth, or a roughened bony plate).