The scientists identified a catfish or bullhead fish in Venezuela which has a bony armor that protects the head and tail, and a pelvic fins when attached that allows you to scale rocks, reported today the Live Science website.The Lithogenes Wahari shares features with two different families of fish, Loricariidae or armored catfish, and catfish Astroblepidae or climbing. These features suggest a ichthyologists Francisco Provenzano, of the Central University of Venezuela, and Scott Schaefer, the Museum of Natural History in New York, that the common ancestor of Loricariidae and Astroblepidae probably could hold and rock climbing with its tail and its mouth. The fish in both families, like the

catfish now identified, have mouths that suck like blisters. The strange fish caught the attention of researchers 20 years ago in Caracas. Sanford Zent anthropologist who worked for the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research in the Amazon state of the fish samples collected and brought to the Institute of Zoology for identification. "The morphology of the fish was so strange that do not fit into any of the taxonomic categories that we knew, but the specimen looks as though it had passed a truck on top. We needed better specimens, "said Schaefer. It took years to determine where the fish had been found, and finally the team collected samples of Lithogenes Wahari after several trips Cuao upstream of the River, a tributary of the Orinoco River. The scientists collected 84 specimens of rocks, where the water level was low at that time. The new copies of Lithogenes Wahari confirmed that the species is a member of a group that is between the two great families of catfish. Bony plates on its head and tail, and other characteristics linked to the species Loricariidae, the most widespread and successful family of armored catfish covered completely. Lithogenes Wahari but also has a specialized pelvic fin is separated from the body and moves backward and forward independently. This feature used in conjunction with the mouth, which is attached, allows you to move on vertical surfaces, and is also only in a family of catfishes climbers restricted to the Andes, Astroblepidae. The ability to climb may have been advantageous for these fish due to the irregular flow of water currents in these elevations.