Chiapas catfish (Lacantunia enigmatica)

Biology

Dorsal spines: 2; Dorsal soft rays: 8-10; Anal spines: 0. Lacantunia is distinguished from all other siluriforms by five uniquely derived and anatomically complex characteristics. 1 Fifth infraorbital bone relatively wide and thick-walled, boomerang-shaped and anteriorly convex, and remote from a markedly prominent sphenotic process. A long, naked span of the infraorbital sensory canal traverses the bone-free gap between IO5 and the sphenotic process. Primitively in catfishes the infraorbital sensory canal is almost completely surrounded by thin tubular ossicles separated by short gaps, the largest infraorbital bone posterior to eye is simple and anteriorly concave, contacting or close to the sphenotic process that is small or lacking. 2 Lateral margin of skull thickened along frontal bone and adjacent parts of lateral ethmoid and sphenotic bones at origins of much enlarged adductor mandibulae and leva

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