Ellen Wachtel, age 10, of Cleveland, Ohio, for her question:
Does a catfish have scales?
The common catfish we find lurking in our creeks and lakes has a smooth skin and no scales at all. His everyday name is the brown bullhead. Yet even with his bull‑like head, a set of whiskers to make a pussy cat envious and no scales, he is a true fish. With his assorted relatives he belongs to a huge order which includes most of the world's fresh water fish population.
The carps and their glamorous relatives the goldfish are scaly kin to the catfish, So are the minnows, the hungry little piranhas and the strange, electric eels.
Of this vast order the catfish family boasts at least 2,000 different members. Naturally, among so many cousins we find a great many differences In fact, the family resemblance is not always easy to spot. Though none have true scales a few have heavy armor plating and resemble pine cones. These rather small fish inhabit tropical waters.
Our brown bullhead has four pairs of whiskers growing from the chin and upper lip. The proper name for them is barbels and they are not pussy cat type whiskers at all. They are feelers and the catfish uses them to feel his way through the mud and debris on the floor of his pond or stream. Maddy water bothers him not at all and he can make a living in water so dirty that no other fish could survive in it.
The average catfish weighs from five to 20 pounds. But monsters of 100 pounds have been taken from our large rivers. Those whoppers are pygmies compared with the giant catfish of the Danube River. There you may snag a 12‑foot catfish weighing almost a quarter of a ton.
A catfish is not choosy about his diet. He eats whatever vegetable or meat, alive or dead, he finds in the water. He makes good use of this food for his own flesh is firm and flavorsome. If catfish were not so easy to come by it might well be considered a valuable delicacy word of caution about catching a catfish. Though smooth skinned, the fellow has very sharp fins. You can get nasty stabs from those on his side and back. Certain catfish have poisonous spines, but our brown bullhead has no poison glands. A wound from him might very likely become infected, though, because he comes from dirty water as a rule. So be sensible and safe, and use the iodine at once.
Fish, as a rule, are poor parents. They lay their eggs and leave them to fend for themselves. Some catfish, however, are excellent parents. The sea catfish carries the eggs and young fish in his mouth for two months and, in all that time, he does not eat. The bullhead builds a nest, porhapo in a rocky crevice. The eggs, measuring about eight to an inch, stick together in a mass. One parent stands guard and sometimes both parent's do. The youngsters hatch and travel in a swarm of 1, 000 or more. One of the parents stays near for a. while to protect the little creatures.