maurice martin : : freelance journalist & playwright

Well, they would be if their fins really were (as sometimes reported) load-bearing appendiges. In any case, the population of snakehead fish in the Potomac River is still swelling.

If they show up in the Tidal Basin, all is lost.

Do you know the difference between a snakehead, a bowfin, and an American eel? You do now, thanks to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Not to be outdone, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has issued WANTED poster for snakeheads. Not "dead or alive"--just dead, thank you.

That would be Walter R. Courtenay, Jr., and James D. Williams. Somehow, in writing about snakeheads for the Washington City Paper I failed to mention their landmark work SNAKEHEADS (Pisces, Channidae) - A Biological Synopsis and Risk Assessment. Shame on me. That book is packed with valuable info on our slimy friends.

Best of all, it's available for free in both HTML and PDF formats. FREE! Now go get it.

One of the questions left unanswered in my article Fish or Foul? was whether the northern snakehead fish found in different locations around DC--Wheaton, Md.; Crofton, Md.; and the Potomac River south of the District--were related. According to the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, they are not. Read the paper here:
http://www.fws.gov/northeast/marylandfisheries/pbsw_b118_02.407-415.pdf

Maryland lets local snakehead owners off the hook.

What you don't know about the area's most notorious monsters...and the people who love them.