Bagrus is a genus of African catfish in the family Bagridae, widespread across the continent's major river and lake systems, with atlas records from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad. The 16 species in the atlas cover an enormous size range, from around 8.5 in up to a substantial 59 in, and share the bagrid build: a robust, scaleless body, an adipose fin, and long barbels used to hunt by touch and smell over sand, mud, and rocky substrate, mostly by night. Several species, notably Bagrus meridionalis (the kampango) in Lake Malawi and B. docmak (semutundu) in the Nile and East African lakes, are large, dominant predators within their ecosystems.
Bagrus is significant chiefly as a food fish across much of Africa — species like B. bajad and B. docmak support important subsistence and commercial fisheries in the Nile basin and the East African lakes — rather than as an aquarium subject, since most species grow far too large for home tanks. The genus includes some notable parental-care behavior for a catfish group, with several species guarding nests or broods in the manner typical of bagrids. Conservation status is mixed and, for many species, simply unassessed: the atlas tally is dominated by Not Evaluated entries, with a handful of Data Deficient, Vulnerable, and one Critically Endangered species, underscoring how little formal survey work has reached much of the genus despite its economic importance.