Though some humans might struggle to go even a few hours without a snack, many fish can last much longer without food – after all, meals can be hard to come by in aquatic habitats.
For example, large sharks only need to eat every few weeks.
But the West African lungfish (Protopterus annectens) can survive for around four years without food. As its name suggests, this tropical freshwater fish has a pair of lungs and breathes air.
It has gills too, but gets most of its oxygen from the air. But that’s not the most unusual thing about these creatures.
They can survive for long periods out of the water – and without eating – when the floodplains they live in dry out. When this happens, they bury themselves in the mud and enter a state of torpor (known as aestivation) to wait it out.
They protect themselves by creating a cocoon out of their mucus and stay there without eating, drinking, urinating or defecating until the water returns.
This typically isn’t longer than a few months, but these fish can survive for up to four years (possibly five) in this state.
Top image: West African lungfish, Protopterus annectens (Owen, 1839), Natural History Museum University of Pisa. Credit: Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
