Many species of snakehead look very attractive as juveniles. Channa bankanensis is no exception from that rule. The reason for the sometimes extraordinary change in coloration is the behaviour. Juvenile Channa are usually schooling fish. Depending on the species they swim in close schools up to a length of 3 cm or even 15 cm. The contrasting juvenile coloration has two basic reasons: first, it helps conspecifics to identify other fish as members of the same species, and second it confuseses predators for the silhouette of the single specimen is only hard to detect in a school.
Later on snakeheads become more and more solitary fish and the coloration becomes dull. Now camouflage is asked, for larger snakeheads are usually predators that feed on small other fish.
Channa bankanensis belongs to the medium sized species that attain a maximum length of 25-30 cm. The species is a typical blackwater inhabitant that lives in the wild in waters with a very acidic character: pH around 3! Luckily the do not demand this in aquaria. Channa banakanensis is distributed in Indonesia and Malaysia.
We currently have very pretty 4-6 cm long juveniles in stock.
For our customers: the animals have code 409021 on our stocklsit. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholeale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
