会走路和呼吸的食肉鱼类正在美国取得进展

会走路和呼吸的食肉鱼类正在美国取得进展

It doesn't get much creepier than the toothy northern snakehead, a carnivorous fish that grows to at least three feet in length, can breathe air and can survive for several days out of water. It can survive for even longer periods in mud and moist environments. Oh, and it travels over land by wriggling its body along the ground.

最让人毛骨悚然的莫过于北部多齿的黑鱼，这种食肉鱼可以长到至少3英尺长，可以呼吸空气，可以离开水存活几天。它可以在泥土和潮湿的环境中存活更长时间。哦，它在陆地上爬行，身体在地面上蠕动。

A snakehead, or Channa argus, seen in 2009. (Photo: Brian Gratwicke [CC BY 2.0]/Wikimedia Commons)

The fish made exclamatory headlines when it made an appearance in New York City’s Central Park, but the more scream-inducing news is that it keeps on showing up in places it shouldn't be. Snakeheads have been found in at last 14 states.

当这条鱼出现在纽约中央公园时，引起了轰动，但更令人尖叫的消息是，它一直出现在不该出现的地方。至少有14个州发现了它。

Most recently, it has been seen in a pond in Gwinnett County, Georgia — where wildlife officials recommend that snakeheads be killed immediately — and in the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh.

最近，在乔治亚州Gwinnett县的一个池塘里发现了这种蛇头似的鱼——野生动物官员建议立即杀死蛇头——以及匹兹堡的Monongahela河。

The fish that's making wildlife agencies skittish is an invasive species native to China, Malaysia and Indonesia. Snakeheads are top predators and feed ravenously on other fish as well as frogs, crayfish and aquatic insects. (Your puppies and children are safe. Probably.)

令野生动物机构感到不安的鱼类是一种入侵物种，原产于中国、马来西亚和印度尼西亚。蛇头鱼是顶级捕食者，以其他鱼类、青蛙、小龙虾和水生昆虫为食。(你的小狗和孩子都很安全。可能)。

To make things worse, it's a fish with no natural predators in the U.S., it can spawn multiple times every year, and females release tens of thousands of eggs with each batch.

更糟糕的是，这种鱼在美国没有天敌，它每年可以产卵很多次，每一次雌性都会产下成千上万的卵。

So, basically, they're huge, walking carnivorous fish that can live outside of water, have no predators, and possess a remarkable reproductive rate. Incredibly cool in an evolutionary sense, but at the same time: Houston, we have a problem.

所以，基本上来说，它们是大型的，能行走的肉食性鱼类，可以生活在水外，没有捕食者，并且有显著的繁殖率。从进化的角度来看，这简直太酷了，但与此同时:休斯顿，我们有麻烦了。

After reports first surfaced of one of the freaky fish being spotted in 2013 in Harlem Meer, a lake in the northeast corner of Central Park, environmental officials conducted surveys of the water. That particular batch of snakeheads is no longer thought to be alive, but there are others in the area seen much more recently.

2013年，在中央公园东北角的哈莱姆米尔湖(Harlem Meer)，人们第一次发现了这种奇怪的鱼。之后，环保官员对湖水进行了调查。这批特定的蛇头不再被认为是活着的，但最近在该地区还发现了其他蛇头鱼。