Distribution and Habitat
Pterygoplichthys' habitat is most common in sluggish streams, floodplain lakes, and marshes. They are known from the Orinoco, Amazon, Magdalena, Maracaibo, Paraná, Parnaíba and São Francisco systems.
These fish have been introduced into many locations. Several species of Pterygoplichthys have been established in the United States in Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, and Texas. Established species include P. multiradiatus in Florida and Hawaii, P. disjunctivus in Florida, and P. anisitsi in Texas. Sailfin catfish are one of the more successful established exotic fish in Florida in terms of their range extension and abundance, yet their presence has not had any measurable effect on native fishes, although they have contributed significantly to the carrying capacity of some fish communities. Moreover, none of the 30 professional water managers, engineers, lake management, and shoreline stabilization company owners contacted in 2004 by a particular study considered erosion caused by the burrowing activity of loricariid catfishes a major problem, except in some man-made lakes in the southeastern part of the state.
In Mexico, P. multiradiatus is established in Campeche, Chiapas, and other localities in central and western Mexico, while P. pardalis has been found in southeastern Mexico. In the Philippines, where these fish are known as janitor fish, P. disjunctivus and P. pardalis have been found, these fish are considered a threat to the freshwater fish population; they are found in the Marikina River and Laguna de Bay. P. multiradiatus has also been established in Puerto Rico and Taiwan.
Read more about this topic: Pterygoplichthys
Famous quotes containing the words distribution and/or habitat:
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)
“Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them; and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.”
—William James (18421910)