This is one of the world's only surviving bichirs, an order of fishes (Polypteriformes) lumped in with some other weirdos (such as last week's coelocanth) that are not the ray-finned fishes that most people are more familiar with. In ichthyology and evolutionary-history classes, they always seem to get listed with the other oddballs next to or after the "main event" fishes, which in practice always seems to be composed primarily of the Perciformes. That's a rant for another day, if ever. There appears to have been some recent systematic work on the bichirs, as the alternate genus name Erpetoichthys also shows up.Picture from here.
2 comments:
Weirdo? Oddball? I find those qualities quite endearing in a fish you know.
That is one odd looking fish, it did some gulping in the National Geographic Channel show I've watched and it was tremendous.
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