Bowfin

Bowfin are cylindrical, olive to brown fish with a long, wavy dorsal fin running most of the back, a rounded tail with a dark eyespot (ringed in orange on males) and a hard, bony skull. They are the sole surviving member of a lineage that dates back more than 150 million years and can breathe air with a lung-like swim bladder, which lets them survive in stagnant backwaters that kill other fish. Native range covers the Mississippi basin, Great Lakes, Gulf Coast and Atlantic lowlands from the St. Lawrence to Texas, with the largest fish coming from Louisiana, Florida and the Carolinas.

Bowfin are ambush predators that patrol weed edges, cypress swamps and shallow backwaters for crayfish, frogs and fish, feeding most actively at night and in low light. Males build and guard nests in spring. Long dismissed as trash fish, they have gained a following among anglers who appreciate a hard-charging predator that eats topwater and soft plastics in waters nobody else fishes. Louisiana's choupique roe is sold as 'Cajun caviar'.