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Arapaima

Arapaima gigas · medium

The arapaima is one of the largest freshwater fish alive, reaching three metres, and it has to breathe air. Its swim bladder is modified into a lung-like organ, and the fish rises to gulp at the surface every ten to twenty minutes. In the oxygen-poor floodplain lakes of the Amazon that is an advantage; it is also what makes the species so easy to catch, since a fisherman only has to wait for it to surface.

Its scales are a study in armour. They are layered — a hard mineralised outer surface over a tougher, more flexible inner layer — an arrangement that can resist a piranha bite and that materials researchers have examined closely for that reason.

Arapaima also have a bony tongue, rough enough that it was historically dried and used as a rasp.

Decades of unregulated fishing removed them from long stretches of river. What has worked since is unusual: community-managed fisheries in which local people count the surfacing fish each year and take an agreed quota. Where those schemes operate, arapaima numbers have recovered strongly; where they do not, the species is often simply absent from otherwise suitable water.

Where it lives

Worml lists the arapaima as native to 6 countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Peru. Its habitat is amazon basin floodplain lakes and slow rivers.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Arapaima is rated medium. To solve the round you need to find any 3 of its 6 listed countries. How scoring works →

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