Our partners have produced a new film about the Search for the Fat Catfish.

Dive into Lake Tota on the Search for the Fat Catfish

Colombia’s fat catfish is one of freshwater’s great mysteries. Not seen since 1957, there are more layers of intrigue surrounding this creature than it has rings of fatty tissue – i.e. a LOT!

Firstly, nobody knows why it has that strange physiology: why is it fat? Could it be from overeating? Or a way to stay warm in the cold mountain waters of Colombia’s Páramo? It could be something else entirely, but with only 10 preserved specimens in the world, and no live sightings of the species for more than 70 years, it is incredibly challenging to know.

And what happened to the species? It was allegedly once so common that people living near Lake Tota used the grease from the fish to light their homes. Yet the species seems to have disappeared without trace. Nobody knows why. Through SHOAL’s Search for the Fat Catfish with partners from Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos at Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad De Los Andes, and Re:wild, we attempt to find answers to some of these questions. Using eDNA metabarcoding and more traditional search techniques, our partners are working to put pieces of the puzzle together and give us some clues about the fat catfish.