Summary: <p>Let’s learn about the LUNGFISH, which deserves capital letters because they’re fascinating and this episode took so flipping long to research! Mysteries abound!</p> <p>The lovely marbled lungfish from Africa:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-493" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/marbled-lungfish-300x122.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="122"></p> <p>The South American lungfish:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-494" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/SAmer-Lungfish-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202"></p> <p>The Australian lungfish CHECK OUT THOSE GAMS:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-495" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Queensland-lungfish-Neoceratodus-forsteri-300x144.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="144"></p> <p>Another Australian lungfish:</p> <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-496" src="http://strangeanimalspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Grandad2-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200"></p> <p><strong>Further Reading:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Buru-Ralph-Izzard/dp/0941936651"><em>The Hunt for the Buru</em> by Ralph Izzard</a></p> <p><strong>Show Transcript:</strong></p> <p>Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.</p> <p>This week’s episode is about the lungfish, and I’m going in depth about some mystery lungfish later in the episode. So don’t give up on me if you think freshwater fish are boring.</p> <p>Lungfish are unusual since they are fish but have lungs and can breathe air. Some fish species can get by for a short time gulping air into a modified swim bladder when water is oxygen poor, but the lungfish has real actual lungs that are more mammal-like than anything found in other fish. The ancestors of lungfish, which developed during the Devonian period nearly 400 million years ago, may have been the ancestors of modern amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. This is still a controversial finding, but a 2017 molecular phylogenetic study identified lungfish as the closest living relatives of land animals.</p> <p>Africa has four species of lungfish, from the smallest, the gilled African lungfish that only grows around 17 inches long, or about 44 cm, to the largest, the marbled lungfish, which can grow more than six and a half feet long, or two meters. They all resemble eels, with long bodies and four thin, almost thread-like fins. They mostly eat crustaceans, molluscs, and insect larvae. The adults have small gills but breathe air through their lungs exclusively.</p> <p>The South American lungfish is in a separate family from the African lungfishes, but it’s very similar in most respects. It can grow over four feet long, or 125 cm, and looks like an eel at first glance.</p>
