 Unable to identify the species, Rodiles involved two American catfish specialists, Dean A. Hendrickson of the University of Texas at Austin and John G. Lundberg of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.A detailed comparative morphological study employing high-resolution, three-dimensional CT-scan imagery of the fish's anatomy revealed a number of distinctive characteristics unique to this species and the absence of characters needed to place this fish in any existing catfish family.In a 2005 publication, these three ichthyologists, with Julian M. Humphries of the University of Texas, described this fish as a new species, genus and family of catfish.