NAME IN SCIENCE: Channa argus
Kind: Fish
Carnivore diet
NAME OF GROUP: School
Up to three feet in length.
A maximum of 19 pounds.

The northern snakehead (Channa argus) possesses a peculiar feature that allows it to breathe both inside and outside of the water. Young animals can go from one pond or stream to another if necessary by wriggling their long, slender bodies onto land.

It is endemic to China, southern Siberia, and North Korea, where it is fished for food and sporadically kept in captivity. However, it has also been dispersed over the globe, most recently in the United States, where the invasive species has led to environmental issues.

The carnivorous, rapidly expanding organisms first feed on zooplankton but soon advance to devouring insects, tiny frogs, and other fish.
 

Physical characeristics
These fish, whose lengthy bodies gave them their name, can reach lengths of three feet when introduced and considerably larger when found in their natural habitat. They have canine teeth on their lower jaw in addition to sharp, dagger-like teeth. They are adept swimmers due to their robust anal fin and long dorsal fin, which spans most of their body. They have prominent splotches down their side and scales that range in color from golden tan to pale brown.

Young animals can move quickly over short distances on land, but as they become older and their bodies round out, it gets harder. Snakeheads typically burrow into the mud during droughts, but they can move more freely during downpours.

Air-breathing
A suprabranchial organ is the name for the unique chamber that Channa argus has next to its gills. This enables the animal to directly gulp down oxygen by inhaling it from the air. Snakeheads may flourish in a range of low-oxygen, stagnant water environments, including swamps, muddy rivers, canals, and ponds, thanks to this adaption. For up to four days, it can live without water.

Snakeheads can, however, also breathe through their gills underwater, and they frequently do so in the winter. The fish only breaths air through its suprabranchial organ during the summer and in warmer temperatures, which require more oxygen.

This talent is not unique to the northern snakehead: Lungfish, betta fish, and walking catfish are all capable of direct air inhalation.
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Reproduction and child-rearing
Depending on the conditions of their growth, these fish achieve sexual maturity between one and three years of age. They reproduce from April to August. Each time they spawn, they lay more than a thousand buoyant orange-yellow eggs. They can do this up to five times. However, on occasion, they can produce around to 50,000 eggs annually. To protect their eggs, snakeheads frequently construct floating nests out of scraps of grass.

For several weeks, parents protect their young, and they have even been known to bite humans who approach them too closely. One such incident included a boy from Delaware who leaned into a pond to look at a juvenile snakehead and was bit on the hand.

Invasive movement
Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Japan, and the US have all received introductions of the northern snakehead. They are voracious predators that have the ability to outcompete local species because to their rapid growth and reproduction, making them a serious ecological hazard. (Read more: Fishermen fight invasive snakehead 'frankenfish'.)

The Potomac River drainage of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is home to the greatest invasive population in the United States. A snakehead was initially discovered in a pond in Maryland in 2002. Even though rotenone, a fish poison, was used to wipe off that population, new snakeheads were discovered in the Potomac in 2004 and have since become well-established there.

Additionally, open water snakehead sightings have been reported in Arkansas, Florida, Virginia, Delaware, and New York, the U.S. Geological Survey states. The first snakehead to be seen in Georgia was taken by a fisherman in Gwinnett County at the beginning of October 2019. Snakeheads must be killed if they are captured in accordance with federal and many state regulations. Environmentalists worry that the fish could migrate to the Great Lakes and devastate the delicate ecosystems there.

As a Food
Fish with snakeheads are good for eating. These esteemed fish are known as nga yant in Burmese and porom in Manipur [Meiteilon] and are consumed in a number of ways. They are praised in dishes made in clay pots, steamed, and pickled, and are known by the Vietnamese names cá lóc, cá qu, or cá chui. Aquaculture is used to raise larger species like C. striata, C. maculata, and Parachanna obscura. Chefs have proposed feeding snakeheads in restaurants to stop the invasion of snakes in the United States.[16] Due to their scarcity in the wild and difficulty in aquaculture, snakehead fish, also known as ikan gabus, are used as the main ingredients in many traditional cuisines in Indonesia, including the Betawi people's pucung gabus.Being rare in the wild and in aquaculture, where they are more challenging to raise than other common freshwater fish like catfish and carp, they are regarded as a delicacy.