The biggest bichir

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BuffaloPolypteridae

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Aug 5, 2013
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Now I've looked around but haven't found much, does anyone have a link to good info on how large ancient bichirs used to be? Or the largest fossil evidence found? Looking at Awesomes congicus got me thinking about big bichirs haha I'd like to figure this out... imagine a 12 foot congi my god that would be scary, I wouldn't go in that water haha

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I don't know where but i remember some article or something saying they were 30ft at one time (could be my head remembering things wrong), but as their prey got smaller and smaller they adapted and started to shrink in size.
 
30 feet bichir? lol i wanna see that article! Man, I remember my childhood when i was a dinosaur knowitall. Never recalled an ancient polypterus that was that big.
 
The biggest from the polypteriformes are from the genus Bawitius. Bawitius Bartheli was the biggest polypterid that was found. Although only scales and some fragments of the skull where found. It still dwarf out the living polypterids of today. It was thought to grow at 8-15 feet long.

Another genus is Serenoichthys. Polypterids classify with short deep body. Not the usual elongated body. Serenoichthys kemkemensis was only 5cm long postcranial skeleton was found.
 
Sorry for the double post cant edit pics in, found an artist interpretations of scale of the bawitius compared to a human, IMAGINE if any of the bichirs nowadays got half that size!

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Damn! That would be sweet if those were still around! I wonder if they look exactly the same as the ones we have now or if there was some type of difference such as teeth like an ATF, etc.


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Yes id love to see the jaw structure of a bawitius, id imagine more and bigger teeth haha imagine that though, a bichir that could down a human w/o issue lol that would be some scary stuff, way scarier then GATF IMO haha

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Being that size there would probably two very large morphological features compared to it's modern day ancestors.

1) Due to its large size it would be more cumbersome to move on the substrate so perhaps it had an increased swim bladder making it more active in the water column. So they could potentially cruise around more.

2) If they still had a reduced swim bladder then it's 'limbs' may have been larger in order to swim and/or move in a walking motion. Equally cool.

Sorry for geeking out a tad. It's what I am studying.
 
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