Climbing Perch

Climbing Perch (Anabas scandens), the "Tree-climber" of the natives, a small Indian fresh-water fish of the Acanthopterygian family Labyrinthici, in all which there is situated above the gills an accessory organ for the oxygenisation of the blood, so that the species can subsist in semi-fluid mud, or even live for a time out of the water. This fish is distributed over the Indian region, and there is no doubt that it can travel for some distance on dry land, progressing by means of the spines of the gill-covers and of the anal fin, and breathing by means of its accessory superbranchial cavity. In the Linnman Transactions for 1797 there is an account by an eye-witness of the ascent of a palm-tree by a climbing perch. Tennent (Ceylon i., 217) considers this to have been phenomenal, though the native name would seem to show that the practice is common.