It’s pronounced ‘buh-sheer'
Looking like snakes with fins, bichirs are an oddball aquarist’s staple. Who better to tell us more than the author of The Bichir Handbook?
JOSH PICKETT Graphic designer and science communicator Josh is the author of The Bichir Handbook.
THE BICHIRS ARE firm favourite for many, and for good reason. Along with the ropefish, they are a social group of armoured, serpentine fishes belonging to the order Polypteriformes, the oldest living ray-finned fishes. There are currently 14 living species ranging in sizes from 35cm to over a metre. Whilst the earliest recognised fossils only go back as far as the Late Jurassic (148mya), paired with genetic tracing, we know these primarily African fishes date back to the early Devonian (384mya). Polypteriform fossils have also been found in South America, meaning this divergence would have occurred before the continents split.
To top it off, a fossilised bichir discovered dating back 5.3-11.6mya in Chad, known as Polypterus faraou, is identical to the popular aquarium species Polypterus bichir (including the former lapradei subspecies), and a recent study contests the validity of Polypterus faraou as a new and extinct species, preferring to merge it with the extant (living) Polypterus bichir—if that’s not a living fossil, I don’t know what is!
Polypterids come from a huge range of different environments, from the oldest and deepest lakes to brackish lagoons and tannin-stained streams. They thrive in slow moving or still water, with densely planted margins, dim lighting, and even a pH up to 10, although 7 is more common. Provided your aquarium is 350 litres or more for the smaller polypterid species, it’s very hard to make them uncomfortable.
While some species do get large, manageable species are available for aquaria, and these just so happen to be the ones thought to resemble their more primitive relatives. They even have characteristics like a slight overbite for, dare I say, mammal-like mastication—they chew, or at least sort of. It’s more so for testing the edibility of what’s in their mouths.
So, let’s meet some…
FACTFILE
ROPEFISH
With a tiny head, long body (up to 45cm), and flowering spadix-like scales (earning its former name Calamoichthys from the flowering Calamus reed), this social fish which does best in groups, is arguably the most charming and personable of all polypterids. This fish comes in different
