The arapaima is one of the earth's biggest freshwater fish. The decaying corpse of a dead Amazon "river monster" lately washed ashore in Florida, bringing up questions about whether this massive killer fish has entered the Sunshine State's ever-increasing catalog of invasive animals.
The Arapaima
Although it may grow in Florida's warm waters, this fish, called the arapaima (Arapaima Gigas - a creature quite big that can develop to be 3 meters (10 feet) long and up to 200 kilograms (440 lbs) according to a 2019 research.
In PLOS One 2019 journal - the possibilities are piled against it, for now, explained Louisiana's Nicholls State University aquatic ecologist Solomon David who was not included in the new arapaima discovery.
That's because these fish have several very specific quirks: They procreate only in certain places, consuming precious energy and time looking after their offspring, and don't attain sexual maturity until they're at least 3 to 5 years old and are around 1.5 m (5 feet) long, Solomon explained.
Durable Population in Florida
However, It would take many individuals to keep a durable population in Florida, and just one deceased arapaima has been discovered so far.
The arapaima in this case was possibly an exotic pet in someone's aquarium that either got extremely large for its tank and was not properly discharged into the wild or died in captivity and was thrown into the river. David explained to Live Science that "they can't even tell if the fish was alive when it was left in there."
The Florida Fish, and Wildlife Conservation Commission explained that: The corpse of the arapaima was in Cape Coral's Jaycee Park on the ramps of the Caloosahatchee River, which pours into the Gulf of Mexico in western Florida, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel recorded in early March.
The Greenish Fish
The usually greenish fish, which have a reddish tail, had already turned pale from rotting, Images indicate. But it was not the entire 10 feet long, it was an arapaima.
This arapaima also called paiche or pirarucu, used to be abundant in parts of the Amazon River, but the species is now endangered in several areas along with its indigenous habitat, Solomon explained. This fish is part of the bony tongue faction, a slew of huge-bodied tropical river fish whose tongues are braced with teeth and whose trunks are wrapped with wide, mosaic-like plates that are tough, like armors, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Solomon explained these plates are so hard that it's even impossible for piranhas to bite through them - though that's only luck, since the arapaima grew long before piranhas came into existence.
The Arapaima is Valued for Its Meat
The arapaima is treasured for its meat, and not just in rural areas close to the river, where the fish has considerably boneless meat, when salted, can be preserved without the use of a refrigerator.
An entire foods market sold commercially grown arapaima, the food store chain disclosed in a 2016 blog post. Though wild arapaimas are endangered mainly due to overfishing, and it not encouraging that the species, one of the biggest freshwater fish on earth, is very easy to spot.
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