Have you ever heard of a toman fish? If you are a lover of ornamental fish or a hobby of fishing, you will definitely know this one fish. This fish, known as the giant snakehead, comes from the island of Borneo and belongs to the cork fish tribe in Latin which is better known as Channidae. When viewed from the shape, the toman fish is very similar to the cork fish. It's just that if you look closely, the toman fish is long, and is the largest species in the Channidae tribe.
Image by ClaudiaWollesen from Pixabay
The distribution of the toman fish is quite limited so its name is not very popular. For Indonesia alone, toman fish wildlife can only be found in Sumatra and Kalimantan. However, toman fish can also be found in several countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and also India.
Toman fish are also classified as wild and predatory fish because they prey on fish and other animals in their environment such as frogs and insects. For its size, if the snakehead fish is generally around 40 cm, the toman fish can grow to a length of one meter, or even more.
Toman fish have a large body shape, are tall, and tend to have a flat body and a rounded tail. Other characteristics are the tapered head shape, small mouth size, and sharp and pointed teeth. It has five fins on the back, thorax, abdomen, anus, and tail.
The attractive color of the toman fish makes this fish also one of the ornamental fish at this time. Where adult toman fish tend to be bluish-black and white bellies. While the toman children are reddish in color with black and orange stripes on the sides of their bodies. With age, the color and stripes fade and turn to bluish-black as the toman fish gets bigger.
In nature, these predatory fish that live in rivers, ditches, lakes, or swamps can prey on small fish, worms, frogs, chicks, shrimp, crabs, and land insects. In addition to being one of the expensive fish that is favored as an ornamental or pet fish, this fish is also preferred to be consumed and is the target of anglers who have a hobby of fishing in the breeding of toman fish.
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