The flapnose sea catfish (''Sciades dowii''), also known as the brown sea catfish, is a species of catfish in the family Ariidae. It was described by Theodore Gill in 1863, originally under the genus '' Leptarius''. It inhabits rivers and estuaries in Ecuador,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

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El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

, Panama,

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, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Peru. It dwells at a depth range of .''Sciades dowii''
at the IUCN redlist. It reaches a maximum total length of , more commonly reaching a TL of . The diet of the flapnose sea catfish includes small

finfish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of liv ...

, fish scales, and

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

invertebrates.Food items reported for ''Sciades dowii''
at www.fishbase.org. Due to a lack of known major threats to the species, it is currently ranked as Least Concern by the IUCN redlist. It has been harvested for its meat since Pre-Columbian times, and remains a commercially important foodfish to date. It is marketed both fresh and dried-salted.

Etymology

The fish is named in honor of

John Melmoth Dow John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

(1827-1892) a Panama Railroad Company ship captain and an amateur naturalist, who presented the type specimen to the Smithsonian Institution.

References

Ariidae Taxa named by Theodore Gill - 1860-1884 Fish described in 1863 {{Ariidae-stub