[4] Their swimming style itself mimics eels, with powerful sweeps of its long tail and free movement of the head from side-to-side, otherwise known as an undulatory motion.

Along with the dorsal finlets and coloring, the bichir is known for possessing ‘armor-like’ ganoid scales, true lungs, holoblastic egg development, sexually dimorphic anal fins, and spiracles.

[4] Other methods of differentiating bichir species were to compare the tubercle, enamel-like ganoin with small bumps found on their ganoid scales, density, distance, and organization.

Along with the dorsal finlets and coloring, the bichir is known for possessing ‘armor-like’ ganoid scales, true lungs, holoblastic egg development, sexually dimorphic anal fins, and spiracles.

Polypteridae, the family classification of Nile bichir, are thought to have diversified differently from other ray-finned fishes, with most diversification taking place in the Late Cretaceous period before declining in a ‘Boom and Bust’ style.

Bichirs are also known to possess spiracles, maxillary (upper jaw) bones fused to the skull and a set of true lungs.

[10] Nile bichirs are often found hunting prey in the vegetated shallow beds of the water bodies it inhabits, using suction-feeding.

Suction feeding - the process of rapid oral cavity expansion to draw prey into its mouth, is often found in ancestral Osteichthyes fishes like bichirs.

Instead, they generate their feeding strike power from their body flexibility coordinated with various muscular and skeletal structure movements to create a vacuum, suction force, that draws the prey in.

[11] Nile bichir can project cartilaginous-supported labial folds to form a funnel to further aid in this suction feeding mechanism.

Nile bichirs rely heavily on their sense of smell to achieve this as they navigate the swamps, rivers and lakes they live in.

This complex process is theorized to be a product of necessity to ensure all sperm released are successful as male bichir gonads are significantly smaller than females.

The main major threats to freshwater fish of North Africa, where the Nile River flows through, include groundwater extraction and water pollution, as well as natural disasters such as drought and temperature extremes.