African Lungfish
African Lungfish
Fish
A fish with real lungs that sleeps away droughts in a mud cocoon, sometimes for years.
💡 Fun Facts
- When its pool dries up it wraps itself in a cocoon of hardened mucus in the mud and sleeps through the drought for months — and in extreme cases up to about four years.
- It has true lungs and must breathe air at the surface; without it, this fish would actually drown.
- Through the long dry sleep it survives by slowly living off its own muscle until the rains return.
Name Story
Protopterus annectens
means “The 'first fin' that 'connects' fish to four-legged animals.”
What does its name mean?
- Proto- — firstGreek prōtos
- -pterus — fin/wingGreek pteron
- annectens — connecting/linking — reflecting its evolutionary position between fishes and land vertebratesLatin annectere 'to bind to'
Protopterus means 'first fin', and annectens means 'linking' — together pointing to this fish's place between the water-dwelling fishes and the four-legged animals that later walked on land.