Photo: Mar11, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Rainbow snakehead
Channa bleheri
18 cm
Adult size
200 L
Minimum volume
1
Minimum group
12 years
Lifespan
Water parameters
Understand these values- Genus
- Channa
- Diet
- carnivore
- Social life
- pair
In the wild
Overview
Described in 1991 by Jörg Vierke, the rainbow snakehead is named after Heiko Bleher, who collected the type series. It is one of the smallest and most colourful Channa: about 20 cm, with orange spots on the tail fin. Like a few other species in the genus, it has no pelvic fins.
Listed as near threatened, it is scarce, needs a particular microhabitat and suffers heavy fishing for food and the aquarium trade. Like all Channa, it breathes air at the surface.
- Scientific name
- Channa bleheri Vierke, 1991
- Classification
- Anabantiformes › Channidae
- IUCN Red List
- Near threatened (NT)
Natural habitat
Brahmaputra basin: northern Assam and Arunachal Pradesh (northeast India)
Observations (GBIF) and localities Native countries Rivers and lakes
It is endemic to the Brahmaputra basin: northern Assam and the area around Doimukh, in the Dikrong basin, in Arunachal Pradesh. The climate is tropical monsoon forest, with heavy rain and hot summers.
The fish dig burrows near tree stumps in forests flooded during the monsoon; they shelter there during the dry winter, then come out to hunt and breed when the forest floods. They tolerate oxygen-poor water and fairly cool temperatures in winter.
Behaviour
A predator, it does best in a species tank, but can live with peaceful fish too large to be swallowed. Young fish tolerate one another, then become aggressive towards each other at maturity; a pair, once formed, stays together but is hostile to other members of its species.
It hunts small fish and insects, and readily accepts non-live food (shrimp, worms). The pair embraces like anabantoids; several thousand eggs float at the surface, without a nest, and both parents guard the eggs and then the fry.
Sources:FishBase Seriously Fish GBIF · Base map: Natural Earth