---
title: "Brown Bullhead"
description: "Ameiurus nebulosus — Fish. The brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus) is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America."
canonical: https://animalchecklist.com/animal/brown-bullhead
last_updated: 2026-09-20
---

# Brown Bullhead

> Ameiurus nebulosus — Fish. The brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus) is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America.

- Scientific name: *Ameiurus nebulosus*
- Category: `fish` (Fish)
- Habitats: `freshwater` (Lakes & rivers)
- iNaturalist observations: 5882
- Wikidata: [Q833957](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q833957)
- iNaturalist taxon: [58654](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/58654)

## Names

- en: Brown Bullhead
- de: Zwergwels
- es: Bagre cabeza de toro de Estados Unidos
- fr: Barbotte Brune
- it: Pesce gatto nebuloso
- nl: Bruine dwergmeerval
- pl: Sumik karłowaty

## Countries with the most observations

US (2560), CA (1924), NZ (77), PL (41), CZ (22), UA (14), RU (10), BY (9), DE (7), FI (7), CL (4), AT (3)

## Summary

The brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus) is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America. It is a species of bullhead catfish and is similar to the black bullhead (Ameiurus melas) and yellow bullhead (Ameiurus natalis). It was originally described as Pimelodus nebulosus by Charles Alexandre Lesueur in 1819, and is also referred to as Ictalurus nebulosus.
The brown bullhead is also widely known as the "mud pout", "horned pout", "hornpout", or simply "mud cat", a name also used with the other bullhead species.
The brown bullhead is important as a clan symbol of the Ojibwe people. In their…

Text: Wikipedia (en), CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bullhead

## Photo

![Brown Bullhead](https://animalchecklist.com/img/animals/brown-bullhead/medium.jpg)

Photo: Tys Theijsmeijer · CC0 · inaturalist — https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33446446

## Machine access

`GET https://animalchecklist.com/api/v1/animals/brown-bullhead?lang=en` — see [openapi.json](https://animalchecklist.com/openapi.json).