The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream

Product Information

Channa argus has a special chamber adjacent to its gills called a suprabranchial organ. This allows the animal to absorb oxygen directly from air by gulping it in through its mouth. This adaptation enables snakeheads to thrive in low-oxygen, stagnant bodies of water in a variety of settings, from swamps to muddy rivers to canals to ponds. It can survive outside of water for up to four days.

The northern snakehead ( Channa argus) has a most unusual ability: It can breathe outside of the water, as well as within. Juveniles can also wriggle their long, narrow bodies onto land, enabling them to travel from one pond or stream to another if needed. Although juveniles have an attractive colour pattern of a bright orange stripe running the length of the body, this rapidly fades with age and adults are a duller blue. This is also known as the Giant snakehead for a good reason.Capable of 1m/39” or more, even in captivity, it is the largest snakehead species. An extremely large tank is therefore necessary to house an adult giant snakehead. Wang, Peng (2013). "The Increasing Threat of Chinese Organised Crime: national, regional and international perspectives". The RUSI Journal. 158 (4): 6–18. doi: 10.1080/03071847.2013.826492. S2CID 154487430.

In this thrilling panorama of real-life events, the bestselling author of Empire of Pain investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York's Chinatown, managed a multimillion-dollar business smuggling people.

Snakeheads can be weaned off live foods and have been known to readily take chunks of fish, mussels, shrimps for human consumption, and commercial pelleted foods of the meaty kind — such as sinking pellets or even commercial fish pellets such as trout chow. They earn their name because their flattened shape and the scales on their heads are reminiscent of the large epidermal scales on snakes. The zombie fiction novel World War Z by Max Brooks features a Snakehead gang member as a character, revealing how they helped transport infected refugees outside mainland China to the West and Central Asia. Fishzilla: Snakehead Invasion". Wild. National Geographic Channel. Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. Video clip titled: "The Northern Snakehead fish wreaks havoc".For many medium-sized snakeheads in the 30-40cm/12-16” range, tank mates should ideally be relatively fast swimming and robust fish. Many medium-sized to large cyprinids are therefore ideal.