Northern Snakehead
Channa argus
Photo: Joe Girgente · CC BY 4.0 · via iNaturalist
Keep or release?
Don't put it back
Invasive here. Keep it and report it rather than releasing it.
Invasive species: Native to East Asia. It competes with native fish for food and space, and it can breathe air — so it survives conditions that kill native species.
TIDE covers New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland rules, plus federal protections everywhere.
Verifying against GBIF…
Conservation status
IUCN Red ListLeast Concern in its native East Asia. In the US it is an invasive species, established in the Potomac, Chesapeake and Delaware watersheds.
What Least Concern means
Assessed as widespread and abundant. This describes the global population, not fishing pressure or legal protection.
On your plate
Common Seafood
Firm, white and good eating — Maryland DNR calls it nutritious and delicious. Keeping it is exactly what wildlife agencies want.
Conservation status and seafood sustainability are two different questions. A species can be Least Concern globally and still be overfished, protected or unsustainable where you are.
Habitat
Slow, weedy rivers, ponds, marshes and ditches
Range
Native to China, Korea and Russia; invasive in the Mid-Atlantic US
Size
Commonly 40–80 cm
Diet
Fish, frogs, crayfish and anything else it can swallow
Group
fish
It gulps air with a lung-like organ and can survive out of water for days if it stays damp.
Tell it from the native bowfin: snakeheads have scales on the head; bowfin don't.
Parents guard their fry fiercely, which is when anglers most often catch them.
Cook this species