Ancient fish...?????

[spoon..!]

I was thinking is a spoon bill cat fish... a rare type of fish or ancient i was looking at them and i was thinking how it looked like a shark ... help me out guys if you guys have a spoon bill cat fish or information on this catfish let me know i wuld love to see pix of it in a aquarium..thank you guys al so are they illegal in what states ..thanks again.

 

[spoon..!]

well this is a spoon bill catfish not my pix .. but just posting for people that don't know this type of catfish..



http://www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/images/PaddleFish9251.jpg

 

[Oddball]

They're not catfish. These are called paddlefish (Polyodon spathula).

 

[spoon..!]

so they are not close to being a catfish?

 

[spoon..!]

Are they illegal in the state of California .?

 

[Oddball]

You can check all the restricted species in the state by state lists in the sticky threads of the buy/sell forum.

And, no, these primitive fish are not related to catfish. They're a filter-feeding cartilaginous fish more closely related to sturgeon.

 

[Oddball]

...not illegal in CA.

 

[Noto]

You aren't the first person to notice their shark-like attributes; they were initially described as a shark. Like sharks (and sturgeons) they have a heterocercal tail, scaleless skin, and a spiral valve in the intestine.

They are an ancient group of fishes. The fossil record of the paddlefish family dates back to the early Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago), and that of their cousins the sturgeons even further back.

 

[Pomatomus]

The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga has a bunch of them. You realize they grow to about 7 feet right? That's a lot of food to filter-feed.

 

[Oddball]

At 18", my pair of paddles were grabbing golden orfs intended for the gars.