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Hippocampus Bildarchiv (2) Frants Lehmann (1 stamp) Karl-Heinz Dau (1 stamp) Ben Lee (1) Jiku Ngando (1) Mark Towers (1)

Habitat: Inhabits lakes, swamps and rivers. Widespread in both shallow and deep water. Probably associated with rocky bottoms/coarse substrates. Mostly active during the night and the twilight hours. Juveniles may frequent exposed rocky shores. Moderately important as a food species in Lake Victoria, but becoming rare with the appearance of Nile perch. Catches decreased strongly in Lake Victoria after the lates upsurge. Predation by lates and competition with lates (for haplochromines) may have played a role in the decline. A notably recovery in waters between 3m and 6m depth in Lake Victoria has been reported. Second most important food species in Lake Edward, Congo. Diet: Feeds on insects, crustaceans, mollusks and fish. Some debris and vegetable matter may also be ingested. Etymology: The genus name Bagrus: latinisation of bagre, which, according to Marcgrave (1648), is a Portuguese word for catfish used in Brazil (possibly first applied to the marine ariid Bagre bagre). The specific name docmak: local name for this catfish along the Lower Nile river delta, Egypt (also spelled dogmak and docmac). Remarks: The penultimate thumbnail image specimen was captured by the image contributor in Lake Chad.

Semutundu

Bagrus domac, B. docmac docmac, Silurus docmak, S. docmac, Porcus docmac, P. docmac docmac,  P. docmac niger, Bagrus docmac, B. koenigi, B. docmac niger

Bagridae

Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo Dem Rep, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda. Type locality: In Nilo inferiori ad Deltam.

50.0cm (20ins)

21-25°C (69-75°F)

6.5-8.0.

Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2009. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version (07/2009).
The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database © Christopher Scharpf.