Hundreds of free puzzles to play online and print.
The answers in the puzzle below are names of fish species. Find the words that run horizontally, vertically, and diagonally throughout the grid.
Visit the Word Search Puzzle Home for links to hundreds of additional word search puzzles on a variety of subjects.
What has come to be called, colloquially in the United States, "the walking fish" are snakeheads -- freshwater species from the Channidae family of fish.
There was much hoopla in the news in the summer of 2002 when a snakehead fish was found in a Maryland pond. Rumors surrounding the fish abounded and grew until the tall tales and urban legends had them walking miles across land from pond to river to pond to lake, destroying all living creatures in their path, and attacking human beings and their pets along the way -- none of which was true.
The snakehead can breathe out in the open for several days and can move across land, not by "walking" however, but by using their fins and a wriggling motion to slowly propel forward.
According to a report released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, (USFWS), and the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA), the federal government had began "evaluating the risks associated with snakehead fishes in 2001" after bullseye snakeheads were discovered in Florida, a year prior to the hoopla that originated in Maryland. The conclusion reached by the USFWS was to prohibit the importation of "all species of snakehead fishes in the Channidae family". Taking into consideration that snakeheads are valuable food fish, this regulation pertains only to live fish. Dead or frozen snakeheads can be legally imported as a food fish.
Although snakeheads do not destroy all living creatures in their path, they are indeed carnivorous predators that feed on small reptiles and amphibians, and most any other species of fish they encounter. If left unchecked they can turn the local ecosystem upside down, rooting out native species either by winning the competition for food or in many instances simply consuming the natives.
To learn more about snakehead fishes and their impact on the environment read the EPA's full report.
See also fish common in Kentucky and a listing of fish species.
Back to the Word Search Puzzle Home