Nature

     Actually, the Mekong giant catfish gets bigger—one caught in Thailand was nine feet long and 646 pounds. Catfish run small, too. Consider the tiny, much feared Amazon-native candiru, a.k.a. the penis fish.

     Catfish are in fact one of the most diverse animal families on the planet, with about 3,000 species. Virginia’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) lists 15 statewide, from the blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus), of which Gold’s behemoth is an example, to the thumb-sized madtom (Notorus spp.).

     When reporters call Bob Greenlee, district fisheries biologist for DGIF, they usually want to hear about the splashy trophy blues. But Greenlee likes talking about its smaller cousins as well, starting with the smallest: “Madtoms are kind of cool,” he says. Found in smaller streams throughout the state, madtoms account for most of Virginia’s catfish species, and some are endangered due to habitat fragmentation. Orangefin and yellow madtoms and the spotted form of the margined madtom are listed.

     The little guys aren’t helpless, though—their dorsal spine is armed with a stinging protein. “It’s very sharp,” says Greenlee. “You get stung and it’s like you’ve been stung by a bee.” He suggests that madtoms are so named “probably because they hurt like heck.”

     At up to about a foot-and-a-half long, bullheads and white catfish (Ameirus spp.) fare better, ranging widely from backwaters and streams into larger, swifter-flowing rivers. The black bullhead is found west of the Appalachians, and the flat bullhead to the east and south. Brown bullheads and white cats are native east of the Appalachians (i.e., the Atlantic slope drainages), and browns have also been introduced in western parts of the state.

     “Angler introductions are the primary source of how fish get moved around,” says Greenlee. That’s probably how the flathead catfish, Pylodictis olivaris, native in southwest Virginia, found its way throughout the Atlantic slope drainages after the DGIF introduced it in the James east of Lynchburg. The enforcers of the catfish pantheon, flatheads are sometimes used to help thin undesirable fish populations. “Flats set up shop, get in cavities and go out and forage,” says Greenlee of this beast that can hit 60 to 70 pounds.