The pirarucu, or arapaima, is one of the largest freshwater fish on Earth, found in the Amazon basin of South America. It has to surface to gulp air every 5–15 minutes. It isn't native to the United States and hasn't become established here, but some public aquariums keep it. In Peru and Bolivia it's called paiche.
Appearance
- Appearance
- A long, rounded fish with big, hard scales, gray to gray-green with red on mature males. Most grow to about 6½–10 ft (2–3 m) and up to 440 lb (200 kg); reports of 15 ft (4.5 m) are considered unreliable.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Large rivers
- Floodplain lakes
- Range
- Native to the Amazon and Tocantins–Araguaia basins of Brazil and Peru. Fish brought to Peru's Madre de Dios region for fish farming in the 1970s spread into Bolivia. In the US, a dead one that was probably a dumped aquarium fish washed ashore in Florida in 2021, but wild populations are not known.
Behavior
- Diet
- Mostly fish, plus some invertebrates; young fish eat insects and fish larvae.
- Activity
- Its swim bladder works like a lung, so it must breathe air at the surface; the loud gulps can be heard from far away.
Life cycle
- Nest
- Parents dig a nest in the bottom with their mouths during the low-water season.
- Fledging
- The male does most of the guarding, staying with the young for 3–6 months.
Name and classification
- About the name
- The genus was long thought to have just one species. Since 2013, scientists have recognized a few more, such as A. agassizii and the slimmer A. leptosoma, so exactly which fish the name gigas covers is still being sorted out.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- DDData DeficientNot enough data yet to assess
- Status
- Heavy fishing has reduced numbers and big fish near populated parts of the Amazon. It has been on CITES Appendix II since 1975, and after Brazil banned fishing from 1996 to 1999 and then managed the catch, numbers there rebounded.
More species to explore
Record what you meet and build your own collection
Your photos are kept with their date and place, and you can fill regional albums one species at a time.