Bowfin (Amia calva) is a freshwater species recorded in the United States.
Scientific name: Amia calva · Water: Freshwater
Size: up to 109 cm
The bowfin is a freshwater amiid of swamps, sloughs, lakes and the pools and backwaters of lowland streams, usually near vegetation. It is a facultative air-breather that tolerates high temperatures and can survive, and even aestivate in, stagnant water, with a lethal temperature of 35.2 C. It ranges from the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi to the Florida Peninsula and the rivers draining to the Atlantic in Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. A voracious opportunist, it takes fishes including other sport fishes, frogs, crayfish, insects and shrimps, using scent as much as sight and capturing food by gulping water. Maximum length is about 109 cm total length, commonly about 53 cm, and it can live 30 years. It is a gamefish also kept in public aquariums. Fishing vulnerability is moderate to high at 50 of 100 and resilience low. IUCN lists it as least concern.
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