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Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves (1) Konrad Schmidt (1) Tim Aldridge (1) Nick Loveland (1)

Habitat: Lives in pools, backwaters, and sluggish current over soft substrate in creeks and small to large rivers; oxbows, ponds, and impoundments. This species is a good sport and food fish and is active at night searching out food along the bottom by relying on its barbels and sense of smell. The 'Yellow Bullhead' closely resembles the 'Black Bullhead' A. melas, but the difference's are that A. natalis has a brown to yellow colour on top with a yellowish underbelly while A. melas has a somewhat darker colour on top and a white belly and seems to have a somewhat more deeper body than the 'Yellow Bullhead'. The main criteria are the colour of the barbels on these two species. A. melas has black to dusky barbels while A. natalis has the two pair of mandibular barbels on the bottom of its chin, white/yellow, and the rest black. Aquarium Care: As an aquarium fish it would of course have to be housed in a somewhat large tank with good external filtration, without a heater, as this fish is deemed a coldwater cat and as such has a wide temperature range. Companions in this tank would be very hard to substantiate as any other fish would be viewed as lunch!. Diet: In the aquarium adults will eat just about everything, pellet food, tablet food, frozen bloodworm, earthworms, shrimps and prawns. In the wild they feed on minnows, snails, shrimp, crayfish and insect larvae. Etymology: The specific name natalis: Latin for “of or belonging to birth,” often applied to Christmas (Noel in French), as reflected in Lesueur’s vernacular name for this catfish, “Pimelode Noël,” allusion not explained but almost certainly in honour of Simon Barthélemy Joseph Noël de la Morinière (1765–1822), French naturalist, journalist, author, and fisheries inspector who devoted 20 years to a projected six-volume history of fisheries of which only one volume (1815) appeared (Lesueur mentioned Noël in his 1817 description of the American Eel Angulla rostrata); most sources claim name means “having large nates or buttocks,” referring to either a swollen and elevated caudal peduncle, a large adipose fin, or the swollen head and nape muscles of breeding males, an etymological error apparently based on the assumption that natalis was the adjectival form of the Latin noun natis (rump or buttocks), (Ameiurus natalis).

Yellow Bullhead

Ictalurus natalis

Ictaluridae

North America: Atlantic and Gulf slope drainages from New York to northern Mexico, and St. Lawrence-Great Lakes and Mississippi river basins from southern Quebec west to central North Dakota, and south to the Gulf.

46.0cm. (16½ins)

08-30°C (45-87°F)

6.0-7.5.

Ameiurus natalis (Lesueur, 1819) Observed in United States of America by Nick Loveland. GBIF.org
Knopf, The Audubon Society Field guide to North America Fishes, Whales & Dolphins, 1986.
ScotCat Factsheet no. 43. Jan.2000.
The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database © Christopher Scharpf.