Who else has rare Malawi catfish?

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Not to rain on your parade, but I have seen cats listed as these in the past, for sale at Big Al's near where I live (in Canada) at about the same time as you purchased yours. (2018) They were 100% hybrids. It's actually quite common to find hybrid synos here in North America, they are bred and exported out of the Czech Republic by the bazillions. The BA's I saw them at had them listed incorrectly (listed as Synodontis njassae ), and when I requested more info from the employee all he could tell me was that they came from their farm in Florida. lol

BTW - this is one of the largest tropical fish wholesale distributors in North America, based in Florida, and they list a number of their syno hybrids.
Hybrid synos have become so popular and common place over this past decade that some suppliers don't even hide the fact. Including hybrid crosses of S. njassae. See link below.

Catfish - Synodontis - SegrestFarms Small Animal Wholesale and Saltwater Fish Wholesale - Segrest Farms

No matter what your cat looks like, without provenance back to the wild there will be no way to determine its genetic make up.

To add to that, In Canada, I have seen hybrid synos incorrectly labelled at Big Al's, including S. njassae, so that really doesn't help add any credibility to this being one of the more uncommon cats found in the Rift Lakes. One of the PlanetCatfish experts is a personal friend of mine (syno321), and he confirmed my suspicions when I saw the tank of mislabeled synos at the Edmonton BA's a few years ago. Right around the same time that you discovered yours. Paul lives in Edmonton, and has been breeding synos, and supplying retail stores here in AB for many years. Probably a few decades now. He has also seen many hybrids for sale over the years.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh crap. Attack of the hybrids.

This is one of those times where I kind of regret buying a trade in fish, because there's literally no way to know where it came from.
That said, I bought mine from the Big Al's in Whitby, not Edmonton. So hopefully I avoided that hybrid fiasco.

Mine does look pretty much the same as proven wild specimens though (https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/wild-synodontis-njassae.568141/). So there is that for it not being a hybrid.

If the consensus here is that mine's a hybrid, it will be traded in and replaced with, depending on what is available, a featherfin or legitimate Malawi catfish.

fishhead0103666 , DrownedFishonFire , here are those pictures.
Sorry for the bad quality, but this fish really isn't the easiest to photograph. Loves his cave, swims too fast to get a good picture/video when he comes out, and I run the risk of getting stung (which would hurt a lot) whenever I try to shake him out of the cave for something like a photo shoot.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I suggest to net it and bring it to glass and photograph. Identifying from these photos is impossible.

I personally thought it'd be about some Bagrid catfish like meridionalis...

 

[RD.]

Unfortunately, no matter how high quality future images may be, as previuosly stated no matter what your cat looks like, without provenance back to the wild there will be no way to determine its genetic make up as far as being S. njassae.

Someone here might be able to identify what else it might be, but that’s about it.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

I suggest to net it and bring it to glass and photograph. Identifying from these photos is impossible.

I personally thought it'd be about some Bagrid catfish like meridionalis...

Good suggestion!

It is rather unfortunate that, as RD said, there can't be any definitive ID here.

 

[RD.]

That said, I bought mine from the Big Al's in Whitby, not Edmonton. So hopefully I avoided that hybrid fiasco.

Big Als in Canada purchases the vast majority of their fish from the same wholesale distributors in the US.
We don’t have tropical fish farms up here in the Great White North. So synos purchased from a large farm in Florida, would be shipped to numerous BA locations across Canada. So Whitby, or Edmonton, chances are both locations are getting the same cats, from the same supplier.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Sorry. The next things to work on are enough lighting, so your camera could focus, and on capturing the whole fish side view, with fins spread more or less and visible. So far it definitely looks hybridish, but I'd rather not guess if I don't have to. Chances are 99.(9)% RD is right but we have been surprised before.