A Fish That Walks on Land?

One issue that keeps popping up when discussing the snakehead scare in America is the fish’s ability to traverse on land and then enter other bodies of water. It does this by steering and pushing with its pectoral fins while propelling its entire body forward with a slithering motion.

From personal observation, I can answer the question, ‘Can snakeheads travel on land?’ with, ‘Yes, but only to a certain degree, and with limited orientation’. Here’s why.

It needs moisture to survive

I have found that if the ground is moist enough, they can easily keep alive on land for an extensive amount of time, just as claimed in shows like River Monsters. However, if the surface travelled on is mostly dry, the fish would die from dehydration in less than an hour.

Orientation is not guaranteed

Their orientation is also not 100%. Many times we would land a snakehead of some sort and leave it on the ground for a few seconds while we go and grab things like pliers or cameras. During this time, snakeheads would generally start to crawl away from us, but they don’t always find their way back into the water despite our being so close to the water already. Most of the time they do find their way back, but there are many occasions when they just wander to some random spot and stop moving from exhaustion. When they do stop, it’s almost like they’ve given up and accepted their fate.

Size matters

The smaller ones tend to be the most mobile ones, while the bigger ones simply just crawl a short distance before tiring out. I believe that this must have something to do with having to lug around a heavier body weight. I have noticed that the smaller species of snakeheads, like the striped snakehead, are more adept at moving on land than their larger cousins, the giant snakehead. I would always notice that the bigger snakeheads gave up crawling much faster than the smaller ones ever did.

Here’s a video of an average-sized striped snakehead making its way into the water. At first it goes in the wrong direction and we had to steer it back towards the water.

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