Fish o' the Day - bowfin

Another favorite - this one because he's one tough SOB. The bowfin, Amia calva, is the only surviving member of the Family Amiidae. For that matter, he's the only surviving member of the Order Amiiformes. As you might be beginning to suspect, he's a bit of a throwback. There are several fossil forms that go back as far as the Mesozoic. And the one that's left looks like he would have been perfectly comfortable back in a time when dinosaurs were dinosaurs and fish were too.

They're widely distributed across the eastern part of North America, where they frequent rivers and lakes. They're particularly fond of oxbows and beaver ponds, and that's where we usually find them. Their physostomous swim bladder is highly vascularized, enabling it to function as a lung when the bowfin finds itself in oxygen-depleted waters. Simply rise to the surface, gulp some air, and get on with your business. They are one of the most "primitive" fish to show parental behavior, with the males clearing a nest for the female and protecting the young after they hatch.

They can grow quite large, approaching 3 feet in length, and can weigh in excess of 15 pounds. The most distinctive external features are the long, undulating dorsal fin that runs the length of the back and the hard, gular plate under the throat. They're fairly vicious predators, taking pretty much anything they can get in their mouth, and they've torn more than a few rigs tossed by bass anglers over a backwater stump. Torn up a few boats too, when brought in green.

They're the proud possessor of the most colloquial names of any freshwater fish in the country. Bowfin is the accepted common name, but most southerners know them as grinnel. In the Florida Panhandle, I grew up calling them cottonfish. In other areas, they're dogfish, or swamp bass, or any of several other monikers. And then Louisianans, who have their own unique name for just about everything, know this relict as "tchoupique."