Ariid catfishes aren’t the easiest group of fishes to identify. Ferraris (2007) recorded 69 nominal species as Species inquirendae, compared to the 145 valid species (in 2007). Over the past 20 years, higher-level experts have indulged in re-grouping and re-naming genera using genetic techniques and created new phylogenies; and while they’re doing that, some folk are attempting to get to basics - the nitty-gritty - of sorting out names that have hung around in the literature for up to 200 years. The process has exposed even more apparently new species, at least in South-east Asia.
This paper reveals the true IDs and distributions of some ariids: Arius jatius from the Ganges River region, A. venosus and A. sumatranus (India to South-east Asia) and A. bleekeri of unknown locality. Some ‘names’ remain unsorted (jella Day, macracanthus Gunther, e.g., and quite several Bleeker spp) for one reason or another.
Genetic studies have also revealed that other species have been lumped under ‘convenience’ names – such as Plicofollis ‘argyropleuron’ and Nemapteryx nenga … or is it caelatus?