Gilded catfish

The gilded catfish, Zungaro zungaro, also called the Jau catfish, dourado catfish or manguruyu, is a large South American catfish of the family Pimelodidae in the order Siluriformes. It is native to the Orinoco and Amazon basins, and in the Amazon it is found well upstream in the main channels of the big tributaries over muddy bottoms. The fish reaches about 140 centimetres in total length, and individuals of 130 centimetres weighing about 50 kilograms are not rare. It becomes sexually mature at around 10 kilograms. Its diet is mainly fish, it hunts at night, and it sometimes enters flood-prone areas of rivers, with reported migrations that follow shoals of the characins Triportheus and Anodus. The nursery ground lies at river mouths. Taxonomists disagree about whether the genus Zungaro holds only this species, since some sources treat Zungaro jahu as a second valid one, and two subspecies, Z. z. mangurus and Z. z. zungaro, are recognised in some references. The name Brachyplatystoma flavicans appears as a synonym.