ONE FAST FISH.(race between crab and snakehead)(Brief Article)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 05-AUG-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

To the list of dream matchups devised around campfires and pitchers of beer--Wilt vs. Shaq, Mac vs. Venus, grizzly vs. crocodile--add one more: turtle vs. snakehead. It would be some race, a turtle and a fish. The early line in Chinatown is that the outcome would depend on the surface. "On the carpet, the turtle would win," a fishmonger there said last week. "But in the mud? Definitely the snakehead."

By now, surely, you have heard of the snakehead--the northern snakehead, also known as Frankenfish or the Fish from Hell. It is a hardy and voracious species from China that gobbles up native fish and quickly takes over whatever lake, pond, or river it finds itself in. It can grow to more than three feet in length and has been known to eat rats. (Its cousin the giant snakehead will occasionally form packs and attack people.) The northern snakehead's most impressive characteristic, however, is its ability...

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