Silver arowana
Osteoglossum bicirrhosum
— Where the name comes from
Osteoglossum is “bony tongue”, from ostéon and glôssa, and it is the character that names the whole order: the tongue of these fish is a toothed bony plate working against the palate like a vice. Bicirrhosum refers to the two barbels that project from the chin and skim the surface as it swims.
— Facts
- Group
- Fish · Actinopterygii · Chondrichthyes
- Order
- Bony tongues
- Habitat
- Still shallow water of the flooded forest
- Range
- The Amazon and Guianas basins
- Size
- 90–120 cm, 4–6 kg
- Diet
- Insects, spiders, small fish, birds and snakes taken from branches
- Lifespan
- 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It swims just below the surface film, with its eyes turned upwards.
- 02
The male holds the eggs and then the fry in his mouth for two months.
- 03
Its large pearly scales reflect light like mirrors.
— What sets it apart
It leaps out of the water to take whatever sits on the low branches: insects, spiders, but also small snakes and birds, up to two metres above the surface. In Amazonian Portuguese it is called macaco d’água, “water monkey”, for exactly that. The leap is possible because the body is long, compressed and flexible as a whip, and because the fish already swims at the surface with its eyes pointing up — it is a fish that spends its life looking out of the water.
