Arapaima

it depends, in the past arapaima meat was reveared by hunters as sacred meat. for that reason, new hunting techniques created declines of these animals. In recent years however, people have begun farming the fish and the excess fish are sold to the aquarium trade. populations are now relatively safe, the problem is that the fish are far between and difficult to study. though stable, they must be monitored as one disease epidemic could mean extinction.

Ive been at the Manila Ocean Park.The Arapaima was just amazing. But Ive heard their numbers are diminishing because of the demand for its meat.

@Diadem - I know what you mean about forgetting to get the photo of the signage...I get so excited about watching the critter, I forget all the time. I have trained myself though and am getting better when I go to zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens, etc to take a pic of the sign, THEN look at the critters. It is even harder because the captive animals are sometimes not too common and not from where you live, so without the sign they are even harder to ID. It's a process. I"m not working on actually "focusing" the signage...because blurry signs and tiny signs I can't read are about as useful as no sign at all. :-)

This is an arapaima, the largest freshwater fish in the world!

Did you happen to see a sign nearby that said what kind of water or oceans or rivers this fish was in? That helps in the ID. For example, I'm in Atlanta, GA, USA. We have an aquarium with whale sharks, which are NOT native to Georgia. Next time out, I find it helps to snap a picture of any signage that I can, so I can ID as much as possible, or at least have some clues.

They looks similar to a Gar. Was this at an aquarium?