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Northern Snakehead — printable fact sheet
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Northern Snakehead
Channa argus
Channa argus arrived in the American public imagination in 2002, when a Maryland angler pulled one from a pond in Crofton and the press christened it Frankenfish. The reality is less lurid than the tabloids but genuinely serious. The northern snakehead is a large, torpedo-shaped…
Did you know?
- A female Northern Snakehead can lay up to 100,000 eggs per year, making it highly capable of establishing new populations rapidly.
- Snakehead parents shepherd a dense, orange-red ball of fry and will charge a swimmer who gets close, which is how many Potomac sightings are made. It tolerates water from near freezing to about 30 C, which is why the northern species — unlike tropical snakeheads — can overwinter across much of the eastern United States. The air-breathing organ means a snakehead can be shipped alive in a damp bag, which is exactly how it reached live fish markets and then, illegally, American ponds.
What I learned
Draw the northern snakehead
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