Northern snakehead
Amazing fact
Northern snakeheads can cross short stretches of land by wriggling like eels.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
Northern snakeheads can cross short stretches of land by wriggling like eels.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Northern snakehead
- Scientific name
- Channa argus
- Japanese name
- カムルチー
- Group
- Freshwater animals
- Order
- Anabantiformes
- Family
- Channidae
- Genus
- Channa
Its native home stretches from Russia's Primorye region to the Korean Peninsula and China.
It is a big, meat-eating fish, and together with its close relative, the blotched snakehead, it has a large effect on the natural environment where it lives.
How the Northern snakehead lives
They are most active around late dusk and early night. They sometimes hunt in groups among aquatic plants near the shore. They sometimes make clicking sounds as they rise to the surface to breathe.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebBasic data
- Size
- Total length: 80 cm
- Range
- Russian coastal region south of the Amur River, Korean Peninsula, and China
Where the Northern snakehead has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- カムルチー
- 简体中文
- 乌鳢
- 繁體中文
- 烏鱧
- 한국어
- 가물치
- Deutsch
- Argus-Schlangenkopffisch
- Português (Brasil)
- Cabeça-de-cobra-do-norte
- Italiano
- Ofiocefalo
- العربية
- شنة أرغنية
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Gabus utara
- Русский
- Змееголов
- Türkçe
- Kuzey yılanbaşı
- ไทย
- ปลาช่อนเหนือ
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — カムルチーChecked: 2026-11-04
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Channa argusChecked: 2026-11-06
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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