Arapaima fish

The arapaima, Arapaima gigas, also known as pirarucu or paiche occurs in the Amazon basin of Brazil, Guyana and Peru. The fish is very important in the economy and culture of the traditional inhabitants of the Amazonian lowlands.

It is much sought after as a table fish in the Amazon Basin. It has few secondary bones and a pleasant flavor.

Arapaima breed when the Amazon floods and spawning adults occur predictably in swampy, seasonally flooded floodplain lakes, making them susceptible to both overharvest and any hydrologic alterations that affect seasonal flood cycle.

This massive predator grows to 4.5 m and 200 kg, making it among the world’s largest freshwater fishes, although fish of this size are rare in the wild.

This fish belongs to the Osteoglossidae and is an obligatory air breather. The young fish has to surface 20-30 times in an hour to inhale atmospheric oxygen. Adults need to surface 6-8 times an hour. It is powerful predator and highly regarded as a food fish by indigenous peoples along the Amazon River who hunt it with harpoons.

Unlike most other large fish species in the Amazon Rover, the arapaima do not perform any long-distance migrations but only short seasonal migration from the main rover channel to floodplain lakes where they spawn during the high-water season.
Arapaima fish