Eeltail catfishes

Scientific name : Plotosidae

The family plotosidae includes few marine cat fish species, loosely relative of the more speciose freshwater cat fishes. In tropical areas one species is quite common.
Marine cat fishes have eel-like tail (pointed, with dorsal, caudal and anal fins connected). Mouth is surrounded by 8 flexible barbels.
Encountered normally on sandy bottoms, in bay, lagoon or back reef. They feed on crustaceans, mollusks and fish caught digging the sand.
The juvenile convict blenny Pholidichthys leucotaenia has the same colour pattern as Plotosus lineatus, but no barbels. Bearded cusk eels are easily mistaken for a cat fish.
We deal in this section, temporarily, also the family of cusk eels (Ophidiidae), similar. This is a family of deep water fishes living in all the seas, only one species is encountered at the tropics at night, often confused with a cat fish.