LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

I was clearing my links and I saw one which I had to post about. It’s a video about a ‘foreign fish’ found in Northern American freshwater system.

What I find interesting about this video is that it only proves too well that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Without figuring out full facts about the fish, it is being perpetuating a species as being more harmful than it actually is. Of course I am not denying that a full grown snakehead is a ferocious predator but there are several errors in that report.

1) That is not a Giant Snakehead (channa micropeltes, http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/freshfish/text/234.htm). The fish in question is a channa argus (http://fisc.er.usgs.gov/Snakehead_circ_1251/html/channa_argus.html). A Giant Snakehead can grow to 20-30kg and are commonly found in the indochine region. That is a variant of the snakehead which grows to relatively big sizes but is more commonly known for making herbal remedies in East Asia. In fact, that is the main reason why it made it to a different continent altogether (to be elaborated later on. In retrospect, the only reason I can see why this fish is there is because of the influx of East Asians. Maybe that’s the real reason they hate the fish.).

The difference would be in the patterns on the spawn. While all snakeheads have orange spawns, they can be differentiated by their black markings. Secondly, if you have been observant enough, giant snakeheads are purple/green in the adult stage. Really pretty. But the snakeheads in America are not. The patterns resemble those of the common snakehead found in Southeast Asia. Ferocious yes. Fishzilla no.

While the feeding habits of both varieties do not differ much, it is still important to note that NatGeo, as a source, failed to acknowledge that both fish are in fact different. Instead they chose to dramatize the effect with horror stories from Thailand of a gigantic foreign fish and an equally terrifying label, ‘Fishzilla’.

2) Snakeheads are as much predator as they are prey. Snakeheads release thousands of eggs however few barely make it through their juvenile period. This is where the irony lies. Of course unfortunately, being in a foreign environment means the local fish wouldn’t know its predatory nature. And over time, the local fish might find it better to eat the young of the snakeheads. However, the local authorities have decided to take things into their own hands by poisoning entire stretches of river. Yes. They did that. I have video proof of that.

References

Lim K P and Ng K L (2005) A guide to the freshwater fishes of Singapore

United States Geological Survey (2008) channa argus