Volume 32, Plate II / Ichthyology (Fish)

Shark-Tailed Hypostoma

Hypostoma squalinum

Found in the Rios Branco, Negro, and Essequibo, this depressed fish hides beneath roots and rocks and issues to the sandbanks to feed at night, its head and body sheathed in scaly armour with small spines and fleshy lips formed for sucking. Greenish brown spotted with black, with bluish webbed fins, yellowish-white underparts, and a gilt frog-like eye, it reaches above thirteen inches and is eaten by the Indians as good and fat.