The Lycanthropic Vulnerability of the Lungfish

The lungfish is half fish/half amphibian and not very good at being either. It looks like a fish who was studying to be an eel, but quit after two years, dropped out of community college and joined the Coast Guard.  It is slim with smooth embedded scales that seldom snag on sweaters.  It may not win first prize in the Most Disgusting Animal Pageant, but I’m sure that, during the awards ceremony, it acts as presenter…

The lungfish is mostly cartilage so it can be eaten like an apple, if you are so inclined; in fact, all lungfish have an uninterrupted cartilaginous notochord because it isn’t polite to interrupt… even if it’s only a cartilaginous notochord. The skull of the lungfish is the only place where there might be any kind of a bone, but it wouldn’t be much. How smart do you have to be to be a lungfish?

The lungfish should not be confused with the lunge-fish, which is a very startling animal indeed…

Lungfish aren’t found in any civilized parts of the world, preferring instead continents like Africa, South America and Australia. When they are in the larval stage, they are bottom feeders. This isn’t so bad because some of the best stuff is on the bottom. When older they eat anything that can be dominated by a filthy squirming limping barely sentient mass of protein. They are kind of like the mummy from the old monster movies… slow-moving but aggressive. You never think either of them could catch anything but an archaeologist has to turn his back some time…

The lungfish also should not be confused with Aida… despite the fact that both occur around the Nile and all involved breathe air, lungfish seldom have protracted wars with Nubian kings…

There are six species of lungfish.

South American Lungfish (Lepidosiren paradoxa) – This is the only lungfish in the Americas… at least until some Chinese guy in Georgia sneaks one in to make a medicinal soup, then changes his mind and deposits it in a lake. What is a Chinese guy even DOING with a lungfish anyway? Sure, he’s hypothetical, but does that make him any less real?

L. Paradoxa can grow to be four feet long… but most of us can grow to be four feet long. It lives in the swamps of the Amazon, if you can call that living. They look a lot like eels. They even have functioning gills when they are in the larval stage; however, their gills turn non-functional when they reach adulthood. On the other hand, they can buy booze and rent a car so the gills are hardly missed…

So, l. paradoxa is a fish that cannot breathe in water. From where I come from, they call that an “amphibian”, but zoologists have a good reason for everything they do… even arson, as I found out. The South American lungfish hibernates during the dry season by covering itself with mucus and living in a hole. Oddly enough, I spent three years in the eighties the same way…

The Leopard Lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) – Living in the Nile river and lakes in northeast Africa, Protopterus aethiopicus can’t find a cigar store to save its life. This six-foot, slimy monstrosity is smooth, slim with deeply embedded scales, making it more like Juliette Lewis than any other vertebrae. The leopard lungfish also surrounds itself in mucus and buries itself during times of drought or when it suspects someone is about to start playing Dubstep…

Until recently, Protopterus aethiopicus has been considered an “obligate air-breather” like its South American second-cousin. Well, researchers Mlewa, Dunbrack and Green took issue with this and fastened radio transmitters to some lungfish in the wild. Sure enough, those leopard lungfish spent a lot of time NOT breathing air, which proved the hypothesis that leopard lungfish wearing radio transmitters can breathe underwater…

Gilled Lungfish (Protopterus amphibius ) – This is the smallest lungfish at around a foot and a half long. It lives primarily in the Zambezi River which is a real thing, I checked. It is an obligate air-breather. Like a Smurf, it is bluish-grey and has two lungs…

The West African Lungfish (Protopterus annectens ) – The West African lungfish is also known as the “African Lungfish” because screw East Africa… am I right? They live primarily in lakes and the upper Congo. They are a lot like other lungfish because a lungfish really doesn’t lend itself to variety.

The Spotted Lungfish (Protopterus dolloi ) – Just in case you thought that there were parts of the Congo where you could get away from lungfish, you find Protopterus dolloi, inhabiting the lower and middle Congo. At fifty-two inches, it is still too short to ride the average American roller coaster. Behavior-wise, the spotted lungfish acts like the leopard lungfish, but he really isn’t fooling anybody.

Queensland Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) – This creature is native to Queensland, Australia, ironically enough. It prefers slow-moving rivers but, in a pinch, will sleep in the back of a Honda Accord. One place that it won’t sleep is in a hole surrounded by its own mucus. The Queensland lungfish does not hibernate through the dry season. It has a totally different strategy: When the water dries up and is no longer available, it dies…

If you search online, you’ll find a LOT of smiling Australian fishermen holding these massive five-foot long one hundred pound discount eels. These anglers do good-naturedly throw the lungfish back, eventually, after they’ve taken a few selfies and gotten it to try beer. The Queensland lungfish is a protected species, although not protected from Aussie fishermen…

Lungfish do not like to be called “air-breathing”… they prefer, “differently respirated”…

Finally, I’d like to mention the protection status of the lungfish. When they CAN be counted, they are usually classified as “least concern”. When they can’t be counted, concern doesn’t get much higher. I’d like to say something encouraging at this point, but I’ve got to finish this and take a long nap.

I’ve finally saved up enough mucus!

 

If you’d like to see other animal essays, might I direct you to:  The Inexhaustible Corpulence of the Flamingo, The Brazilian Wandering Spider and Two Thousand and Wombat, a Space Odyssey