Hybrid Ictalurids

[divemaster99]

I've been interested in this topic lately and doing some research earlier I found this old thread from the forum that Necro started http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-41772.html. I know that Channel X Blue catfish can easily be hybridized and I imagine that hybridizing Ameiurus (Bullhead) species wouldn't be a whole lot harder. However would any of the following combinations be possible to breed in a pond environment should a male or female of each species be present without using lab fertilization methods?

• Ictalurus sp. X Ameiurus sp.
• Ictalurus sp. X Pylodictis olivaris
• Ameiurus sp. X Pylodictis olivaris
• Ictalurus sp. X Noturus sp.
• Ameiurus sp. X Noturus sp.
• Pylodictis olivaris X Noturus sp. (it's be a challenge alone to get the flathead to not eat a madtom )

I have a feeling any of those hybrids would look really cool if it was possible to breed, especially P. olivaris X a Noturus species!

 

[divemaster99]

Would a Blue X Flathead be possible?

 

[Zeke]

Not without scientific/genetics lab intervention. I think it would be like crossing a chimp with a spider monkey, for example. They are the same, yet completely different.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Agree with Zeke.

Many thousands of catfish combos have been tested worldwide for aquaculture, intra-family and inter-family. Very few are successful and AFAIU only two are really viable and chosen for mass-production: TSNxRTC and TSNxLeiarius marmoratus. The rest, even if produced, are weak, feeble, disease prone, and/or do not reach into adulthood with or without a "life support".

(I am not counting synodontis hybrids which are intra-genus and are made for ornamental fish trade.)

Moreover and FWIW (which is nothing), IMHO, this is a bad game of biblical proportions that mankind should have never entered. Messing with genes, nature, and playing "gods". But it only thinks it is playing "gods". It's playing the opposite of God. How sorry and regretful will we be when we know...

There are two camps already. So feel free to disagree. You won't be alone. And neither am I.