Frankenfish: The Great Snakehead

The Great Snakehead is a huge fish that is usually found in Southeast Asia, and it can grow as large as 66 pounds. But when they are young, great snakeheads are fascinating and beautiful, so they are popular aquarium fish. Young snakeheads are brownish red and slender with stripes. The problem is that they don't stay young and slender, and they get too large for aquariums. Adults have light bellies and dark backs, and their heads look like snakes, with many sharp and spiked teeth. So people are no longer fascinated and dump them into ponds and other freshwater bodies of water.

With other freshwater aquarium fish such as goldfish, releasing them into the wild isn't a problem; they just blend in with other fish species and become new natives to the area, predators of smaller fish and prey of larger fish. But the problem with giant snakeheads is that they grow very quickly, and they are so aggressive and predatory that they have no natural predators. So they can quickly overpower a body of water and either harm or wipe out the native species living there. Great snakeheads eat just about anything that moves - fish, snakes, frogs, crustaceans, and even rodents and birds. They do not usually chase food; instead, the ambush it. They hide in dense cover and jump out to eat whatever happens to pass by.

Snakeheads are capable of spawning up to five times a year. Because they can produce up to 50,000 eggs in each spawning, they are able to totally decimate native fish species, including popular game fish such as trout and bass. They have adapted through the years to survive in water that has little oxygen, and as a result they can crawl for short distances across land, using their fins to balance, breathing in oxygen through small bronchial appendages. Although they will not attack humans they may encounter on land, they may cause injury to anyone who steps on them. However, adult snakeheads are very vigorous in protecting their young. One species of snakehead reportedly attacks people and has occasionally killed humans who approached their brood.

So far there have been snakeheads captured in northern California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, areas where the climate is not conducive to the maintenance of a population. But if a snakehead is ever released into the subtropical waters in Hawaii or Florida, chances are that the fish would be able to successfully reproduce, and many endangered species in the United States - as many as 115 species of fish, 16 amphibians, and 5 endangered crustaceans - would be affected or become extinct.