The Amazon’s Biggest Prehistoric Fish Is Delicious and Dying

Photo: Jeff Kubina

The arapaima looks less like a fish than a prehistoric torpedo. It’s the largest freshwater fish in South America, where it can grow to over eight feet long and weigh more than 400 pounds. Because it often inhabits oxygen-depleted rivers, it breathes atmospheric air, gulping oxygen with a primitive lung called a labyrinth organ rather than gills. It feeds on other fish and, if it  feels like it, will even jump out of the water to grab a snack in the form of a bird or small land mammal. Its massive scales, which act like armor as it swims through piranha-infested bodies of water, are used as nail files by people living in the Amazon. Oh, and it’s barely changed for about five million years.

Arapaima also happens to be delicious.

LINK (via: Munchies)