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Glass catfish (in Latin – Kryptopterus bicirrhis) — is a kind of freshwater ray-finned fishes of catfish family that inhabit in South-Eastern Asia.
For more information see the description section below.
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There are no pigments in the fish body, this catfish is transparent to the bone – you can see its skeleton and some inside.
There is a spine line along the fish 6-10 cm long body, costal bones are also seen.
In the wild, in glass catfish habitat such a body structure helps these harmless fish to hide from predators. Ghost catfish just disappears in the muddy water in the wild.
The number of melanophores (cells that contain pigment in them) is quite low, so the fish muscles are transparent and light colored.
There’s one more pigment in the fish body except melanophore: it’s guanine that is responsible for metallic coloring.
This pigment develops inside the fish cells in form of crystal plates that act like a mirror, reflecting light and color of the environment and this way it makes the fish masked in water.
The fish has a couple of long barbels on its upper lip. Even though it may seem that the fish doesn’t have a dorsal fin, if you look closer, you can see a small fin right behind the fish head. However, glass catfish don’t have a flesh fin.
