St. John's River Catfish

The St. John's River Catfish (Hypostomus halilacus) is a large plecostomus, native to the St. John's River of Florida.

Evolutionary History
This species is descended from invasive plecos that were introduced to the St. John's River, possibly from hurricanes, or from aquariums that they outgrew of, and the owner disposed of them into the river, or one of the interconnected lakes. Despite efforts to eradicate them from the river, they survived, and when humans began leaving the planet for other planets, their population exploded. However, the river had been cleaned of pollutants, as well as many of the interconnected lakes, thus allowing them to survive. However, the St. Johns River had shrunk quite a bit from human activities. However, this was not enough to kill off plecos, though a few, already rare species went extinct in the river from this. Eventually, the river fully recovered, and plecos began to grow larger in this environment. By 3 million years into the future, this species as we know it appeared, appearing in the form of fossils recovered from the bottom of the river, as well as the connected lakes. By 4.9 million years into the future, a subspecies adapted to brackish conditions diverged away from the main species, and can be found in the mouth of the river, found near the former city of Jacksonville. By 10 million years however, the native sapient posthumans of North America begin to rebuild civilization, and are all but hunted to extinction, except for the brackish subspecies, which by this time, has become a seperate species, and is capable of living in saltwater, which allows them to avoid humans enitrely, for humans will not cross the atlantic again for a bit, and by the time they do, their populations are too large to be fully wiped out by humans.

Description
This catfish, like its ancestors, is covered in large, scute-like plates, mainly around the head and the upper body. The river species is brown with black colored stripes, but, the brackish subspecies (H. h. hydrohali) has a slight blue tint. The river species reaches a length of 1.2 meters at maximum, but, the brackish subspecies is slightly smaller, reaching only 1.02 meters long.

Habits
Their diet consists mainly of various plants, though they will still snack on driftwood, and are known to rip wood off of the crude boats that the only sapient posthumans in Florida use. They will however, ocassionally scavenge on carrion. They are not as territorial as their ancestors though, and will often school together. When oxygen levels get tough, they will suck air from the surface, just as their ancestors did, allowing them to survive through the drier periods.