Netuma thalassina
(Rüppell, 1837) · speciesAt a glance
Sources9 archives
Databases and archives Netuma thalassina's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation9 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 522 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System1 972 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI105 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics102 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
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.
The giant catfish (Netuma thalassina), also known as the giant sea catfish, giant salmon catfish, giant marine-catfish, or the khagga,Common names of Netuma thalassina at www.fishbase.org. is a species of catfish in the family Ariidae. It was described by Eduard Rüppell in 1837, originally under the genus Bagrus. It inhabits estuaries and occasionally freshwater bodies, in Japan, Australia, Polynesia, southern Vietnam in the Mekong Delta, the Red Sea and the northwestern Indian Ocean. It dwells at a depth range of 10 to. It reaches a maximum total length of 185 cm, but usually reaches a TL of 70 cm. The diet of the giant catfish includes crustaceans such as crabs, shrimp, prawns and stomatopods; worms, finfish, cephalopods, sea cucumbers, and mollusks.Food items reported for Netuma thalassina at www.fishbase.org.Food and Feeding Habits Summary Netuma thalassina, 1 at www.fishbase.org.Food and Feeding Habits Summary Netuma thalassina, 2 at www.fishbase.org. It spawns between April and August.Spawning for Netuma thalassina at www.fishbase.org. The giant catfish is harvested commercially and recreationally.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Habitat & environment4
Uses & economy1
Other traits3
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 Netuma thalassina 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.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
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 type3 494 records
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 institutions7 of 22 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| DEWlocation not on record | 270 |
| Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 36 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 30 |
| Sydney, AU | 19 |
| Natick, US | 10 |
| Washington, US | 10 |
| Fisheries Research Laboratory, Mie Universitylocation not on record | 7 |
| Western Australian Museumlocation not on record | 7 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 6 |
| Mutare Museumlocation not on record | 4 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 4 |
| 4 | |
| Vancouver, CA | 3 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 2 |
| Kagoshima University Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Chinese Academy of Sciences, Marine Biodiversity Collection of South China Sealocation not on record | 1 |
| CSIRO, Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Alberta Museumslocation not on record | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 1 |
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Netuma thalassina 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.