Bioecology of African Catfish and Poisonous Marine Fish (Actinopterygii: Teleostei)

Abstract

Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) (Siluriformes: Clariidae) the African catfish is a large, eel-like fish, usually dark gray or black on the back and white on the ventral part, a smoother flat bony head compared to other catfish, and a wide, terminal mouth with four pairs of barbels. It has an accessory respiratory organ that allows it to breathe atmospheric air and survive in environments with low oxygen levels. They remain in the muddy substrates of lakes and occasionally swallow air through their mouths. It can leave the water at night and walk on dry land using its strong fins and spines, in search of food or migrating to other bodies of water to reproduce. During aggressive intraspecies interactions, this species was observed to generate single-phase discharges through electrical organs in its head that lasted from 5 to 260 ms. The manuscript aimed to investigate the bioecology of African catfish and venomous marine fish (Actinopterygii: Teleostei). To develop the study, the methodology used an integrative literature review, which is a synthesis process with the objective of expanding the understanding of knowledge and achieving the expected results. In this way, the researcher can prepare an integrative review with different purposes, which can be aimed at defining concepts, reviewing theories, or methodological analysis of studies included on a given topic. In its construction process, it is necessary to go through six distinct stages, which are: identification of the theme and selection of the hypothesis or research question; establishment of inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies/sample or literature search; definition of information to be extracted from selected studies/categorization of studies; evaluation of included studies; interpretation of results; and presentation of knowledge review/synthesis. To carry out the study, a search for scientific articles was carried out through the Virtual Health Library, in the SCIELO, LILACS, and Pubmed databases.