Heteropneustes fossilis ( Bloch, 1794 )

Çiçek, Erdoğan, Jawad, Laith, Eagderi, Soheil, Esmaeili, Hamid Reza, Mouludi-Saleh, Atta, Sungur, Sevil & Fricke, Ronald, 2023, Freshwater fishes of Iraq: a revised and updated annotated checklist- 2023, Zootaxa 5357 (1), pp. 1-49 : 26-27

Heteropneustes fossilis ( Bloch, 1794) [I]—Singee

Taxonomy. Original description: Silurus fossilis Bloch, 1794: 46 , Pl. 370 (fig. 2) [ Tranquebar [ Tharangambadi], India; lectotype: ZMB 3074].— Iraq synonyms: None.—Revisions: Ratmuangkhwang et al. (2014: 82).— Illustration: Bloch (1794: 46, Pl. 370 (fig. 2)).

Status in Iraq. First record from Iraq by Khalaf (1961). This species has been introduced in Iraq in late 1950s ( Jawad, 2015) and Al-Hassan & Muhsin (1986) from the marine waters of Iraq; confirmed by Al-Hassan & Muhsin (1986); Al-Faisal et al. (2014).—Iraq materials: Fish Collection of the Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources, College of Agriculture, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq.

Distribution and habitat. Distribution in Iraq: Euphrates River.—General distribution: South Asia: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos and? China. Introduced in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.—Habitat: This species inhabits freshwater and, rarely, brackish waters as well. This is primarily a fish of ponds, ditches, creeks, swamps, and marshes, but it is sometimes found in muddy rivers. Its air-breathing apparatus enables it to exist in almost any kind of water quality. Generally, during the dry season, it lives in semi-liquid and semi-dry mud, and, even when the mud dries, they take their bodies to the bottom of the fissures and crevices formed by the cracking mud. Freshwater.

Economic importance. Commercially important.

Reasons of introduction. Fisheries: enhancement of wild stocks and sports fishing.

Conservation. Not relevant (introduced species).