[1] It inhabits rivers and estuaries in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Peru.

[3] The diet of the flapnose sea catfish includes small finfish, fish scales, and benthic invertebrates.

[5] Due to a lack of known major threats to the species, it is currently ranked as Least Concern by the IUCN redlist.

It has been harvested for its meat since Pre-Columbian times, and remains a commercially important foodfish to date.

[3] The fish is named in honor of John Melmoth Dow (1827-1892) a Panama Railroad Company ship captain and an amateur naturalist, who presented the type specimen to the Smithsonian Institution.