Arapaimidae

Agassiz's Arapaima

Arapaima agassizii

• Tropical
• Southern Hemisphere
• Regional distribution
• Freshwater fish
• South America
• Elongated
• Tropical fish

Arapaima agassizii is a species of freshwater fish endemic to Brazil. It is a member of the arapaimas, a genus of air-breathing fish that contains some of the world's largest freshwater fish. It is known only from a single now-lost holotype collected between 1817 and 1820 from an unspecified region in the lowlands of the Brazilian Amazon, and an 1847 description by Achille Valenciennes, based on notes & illustrations of the specimen made by Johann Baptist von Spix and Louis Agassiz in 1829.