Researchers discover new snakehead fish species in Kerala
A group of Indian and British scientists have found a mysterious new species of ‘snakehead fish’ lurking in the subterranean waters of Kerala. The unusual finding was reported in a scientific paper published in international animal taxonomy journal Zootaxa on Thursday.
The bizarre fish has been named Aenigmachanna Gollum (Gollum Snakehead) after ‘Gollum’, a character from the ‘The Lord of the Rings’, a creature that went underground and during its subterranean life changed its morphological features. subterranean life changed its morphological features. The fish is not only a new species, but also a remarkable new genus of the snakehead family channidae (which is currently represented by two other genera, Channa in Asia, and Parachanna in Africa).
Snakehead fishes of the family Channidae are predatory freshwater fishes comprising 50 valid species, many of which are important food fishes. Some are also popular in the aquarium fish trade, and others have been introduced around the world with several species becoming highly invasive (especially in North America). Although readily recognized as a member of the family Channidae, the new species, shows several morphological features that are highly unusual or even unique in comparison to its closest relatives. Aenigmachanna Gollum also represents the first species of snakehead to be recorded from subterranean waters.
When local youngster and fish hobbyist, Ajeer, stumbled upon this interesting fish from his rice field near Vengara in Malappuram district of Kerala, little did he realize that the fish will become one of the most unusual species to be described from India in recent times.
Snakeheads, however, are notorious in many other parts of the world, for some have invaded ecosystems in continents including Europe and North America. For instance, the northern snakehead is native to parts of China and East Asia but it has been identified as one of the eight (out of a list of 329) invasives in the European Union that pose a “very high” overall threat to biodiversity and ecosystems there.
