Peckoltia greedoi - The Greedo Catfish | Star Wars Week

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]It's another day of Star Wars week on the channel, and what better way to continue on with what I'd say is one of the best known animals named after a Star Wars character, being a Peckoltia Gridoi, a species of armored catfish from the Gurupi river drainage of Brazil.

[00:00:14]Getting into things, specimens of the species were first found in 1998, with them for a good while going undescribed, but that wasn't till 2005.

[00:00:24]This was when Jonathan Armbruster, a researcher from Auburn University in Alabama, acquired them from a museum in Porto Alegre for a manuscript he was working on in regards to armored catfish, and he picked these specimens up thinking that they were unusual looking.

[00:00:38]Well, they certainly are, but he didn't realize this at the time, and he thought that the specimens belonged to the already established species of Peckoltia vittata, which he assigned them to in 2008. But as time went on, the differences continued to mount up.

[00:00:54]After examining them, he and a wider team in 2015 classified them as a new species, being P. gridoi, with them being named as such due to having a quote remarkable resemblance to said Star Wars character. And yeah, I can certainly see it. The eyes are certainly the biggest similarities to me, having quite the starry ethereal look that Greedo's do, being a rodent and all. And the lips do, to an extent, look like Greedo's mouth. So all in all, it's a pretty good comparison.

[00:01:21]They are, however, not green, which would make this name even more apt, being an overall reddish-brown color instead. But hey, it's certainly close enough.

[00:01:30]The funny thing is is that the idea of naming this fish after Greedo first came from an arachnologist of all people, given the team who described the catfish was sharing a lab with a bunch of them.

[00:01:40]And this one arachnologist apparently looks at one of the fish specimens and says this that, quote, "You know, that looks like that guy from Star Wars." End quote.

[00:01:50]Armbruster and co. then realized they were talking about Greedo, and well, the rest was history.

[00:01:56]At around 45 to 78 mm long, these guys certainly aren't very big, but their group, the suckermouth armored catfish, some of which are commonly known as plecos, certainly are, with over 800 species known, with P. greidyswayi being around small to medium-sized when compared to them all.

[00:02:14]To finish things off, Armbruster has also stated that many of the specimens he and his team have collected over the years have yet to be cataloged. And so, in terms of our understanding of these fish overall, there is still a good way to go. So, P. greidyswayi is really only the tip of the iceberg.

[00:02:30]Now, the big question is, could these fish shoot you? And do it first at that?

[00:02:35]Well, they aren't any archerfish, so you would thankfully be fine. But, if you're any form of algae or invertebrate, that's a whole different story.

[00:02:43]Anyways, I thank you for watching this video on these animals, and that you may have learned something new.

[00:02:48]If you would like to see more from this channel, be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. And with that, stay tuned for tomorrow to see some more Star Wars named animals.

[00:03:05]My bounty.