Brachyplatystoma

Brachyplatystoma is a genus of catfish from the family Pimelodidae sometimes collectively termed the goliath catfishes. As this common name indicates, this genus includes some of the largest species of catfish, including the piraíba, B. filamentosum, which reaches up to 3.6 metres (12 ft) in length; though the other species do not reach this length. Brachyplatystoma are found in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and other tropical freshwater and brackish habitats in South America. All species are migratory, which makes them important as food fish across their wide range. Some are also kept as aquarium fish.

Brachyplatystoma

M. Goulding, from Ronaldo B. Barthem, Michael Goulding, Rosseval G. Leite, Carlos Cañas, Bruce Forsberg, Eduardo Vent… · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PimelodidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Siluriformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Siluriformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Siluriformes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Siluriformes

Time the record covers

At most 2.8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 13.8 Mya and 11 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesMiocene14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14.3 Mya10.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Brachyplatystoma on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Villavieja — 3.25°N, 75.18°WVillavieja — 3.22°N, 75.14°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Brachyplatystoma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Brachyplatystoma and its relatives

Miocene

Where Brachyplatystoma and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Brachyplatystoma, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Brachyplatystoma

Credit
M. Goulding, from Ronaldo B. Barthem, Michael Goulding, Rosseval G. Leite, Carlos Cañas, Bruce Forsberg, Eduardo Vent…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Brachyplatystoma was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPimelodidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bleeker 1862