Freakish Fish Causes Fear in Md.
Carnivore Moves on Land, Can Survive 4 Days Without Water

At first, reports of the strange-looking creature with the head of a snake and a gaping saw-toothed maw were dismissed as just another fish tale. A bowfin, most likely. Or some other kind of exotic fish that outgrew its tank and was tossed into the pond by its owner.
But two weeks after an unidentified angler caught the thing in a drainage pond behind a Crofton shopping center, state officials solved the mystery. An exotic fish expert in Florida identified the creature from a photo as a northern snakehead, prized as a delicacy in China and Korea where it originates, but a nasty Frankenfish, as far as U.S. officials are concerned.
It grows to nearly three feet, eats whatever it wants -- mostly other fish -- can live through icy winters and survives even in oxygen-deprived waters.
But there's more: It can crawl out of the water and wiggle across land, surviving up to four days.
Dreaded by fish biologists, it is capable of clearing out a pond of all living creatures and then wriggling on to new hunting grounds on its belly and fins.
Even worse, the fisherman -- perhaps thinking it was a rare native species -- released it.

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 27, 2002