Bagarius lica

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

lica: apparently a latinisation of lika, the Malay name for this catfish in Sumatra.

Southeast Asia, from the Mae Khlong to the Dong Nai drainages in Thailand, Laos, China, Cambodia and Vietnam, and south through Peninsular Malaysia to Sumatra, Borneo and Java (Catalog of Fishes, following Ng & Kottelat, 2021). FishBase lists Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Type locality is 'Moresi River [Musi River] at Palembang, Sumatra, Indonesia'.

Bagarius nieuwenhuisii Popta, 1904 was described from the Bo River in the Mahakam basin of Borneo. The Catalog of Fishes lists it as possibly the same species.

Adults live on the bottom of large rivers, among boulders and often in the white water of rapids, and are not found in small streams. They migrate in schools and spawn in the rivers before the rainy season. Some are reported to migrate after their prey, and to follow Catlocarpio siamensis on its upstream migration (FishBase).

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.

In the wild it feeds mainly on prawns, and also takes small fishes and aquatic insects (FishBase).

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.

Best maintained alone.

Ng & Kottelat (2021) restricted B. bagarius to the Indian subcontinent and treated Bagrus yarrelli Sykes, 1839 as its junior synonym. The large Bagarius of Southeast Asia, long listed as B. yarrelli, is this species.

The sources disagree on its size. FishBase gives a maximum of 200 cm SL, from Kottelat et al. (1993), while Ng & Kottelat (2021) give 52 to 140 cm SL as the largest sizes of the species other than B. vegrandis.

B. vegrandis, from the Chao Phraya and Mekong, is much smaller and reaches only about 22 cm SL. B. suchus and B. rutilus also occur in Indochina.

It is fished for food and sold fresh in markets, but it is not highly valued because its fibrous flesh spoils quickly and can cause illness (FishBase).

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).