Galeichthys feliceps
Valenciennes, 1840 · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Galeichthys feliceps's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation4 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility474 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System683 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI2 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics10 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Galeichthys feliceps, the white barbel, sea barbel, white baggar or white sea catfish, is a species of sea catfish found in coastal waters and estuaries over muddy bottoms at depths of from 1 – 120 metres where they gather in large shoals. They occur from Namibia to South Africa with questionable records of sightings from Madagascar and Mozambique in Africa and the United States of America and Mexico in North America. It is coloured brown, grey or greenish-brown on the upperparts and is paler below. While most grow to a length of 35 cm, some individuals attain a length of 55 cm with a record of a fish from South Africa weighing 3.8 kg. The white barbel is a mouthbrooder as are the other members of this family. The female lays approximately 50 relatively large (15–16 mm diameter) eggs which the male carries in his mouth for about three to four months. During this time the male does not feed and can lose nearly one quarter of his body weight. The adults feed on crustaceans, polychaete worms, fishes and mollusks including cephalopods. The juveniles mostly scavenge. There is a commercial fishery for this species and they are also displayed in public aquariums. As with many species in this family, the dorsal fin spines are venomous and any wounds inflicted by them must be promptly treated.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
Habitat & environment3
Uses & economy1
Other traits2
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Galeichthys feliceps has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
The complete instruction manual Galeichthys feliceps carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type1 157 records
Origin
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions5 of 11 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 46 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 9 |
| ICM-CSIClocation not on record | 8 |
| Paris, FR | 5 |
| Washington, US | 2 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| University of Johannesburglocation not on record | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 1 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| NHMOlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Galeichthys feliceps was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.