if you asked me what animals could totally defy death i would say fish and why would i choose these aquatic gill-bearing animals that people usually eat for dinner well the reason for that answer is in this video a man in china recorded this video of himself coming across a very dried-out fish the creature doesn’t seem to have any sign of life until the man in the video pours some water onto its mouth and gills then it starts to move this supposedly dead fish just came back to life with just a tiny bit of water

i was so startled when i first watched this video because there’s no way this was real so with a very skeptical mind i did some digging on the internet and i found out that fish really can defy death what the fish we see in the video is a sucker mouth catfish or hypostomas plecostomus a tropical freshwater fish native to northern south america these fish are known for their ability to withstand harsh environmental conditions with large bony plates that are hard enough to pierce through car tires this species is considered very invasive as

They lay tons of eggs and are highly adaptive in some places around the world sucker mouth fish has become a problem because there’s no way to kill them fishermen tried to bury them but they were very hard to decompose this type of catfish has no nutritional value so you can’t eat them plus their bodies are way too tough and spiky you could accidentally cut yourself just holding one they also rip fishing nets which is very annoying and did i mention they can pierce car tires yes they can they also burrow into riverbanks causing

Erosion they churn up the river bottom reducing water visibility there are even reports that they stress out wintering manatees because they try to eat the algae off the big mammals all of this makes these fish extra difficult to deal with sucker mouth fish’s diet usually consists of algae and small organisms that grow on submerged objects which is why people put them in fish tanks so they can help clean the glass and water hence the other name janitor fish but because they are voracious sometimes they suck the slime on other fish’s

Bodies this can be dangerous because they can actually make sores on other fish from doing this leaving the window wide open for illnesses and one more thing i think you should know while we’re at it is that sucker mouth fish can also walk on land a fish that can move on land that can’t be but surprise surprise everything is possible sucker mouth fish can walk on land and they do so surprisingly well researchers even had to invent a new word ruffle to describe the way they move as it is so unusual and is unlike any form

Of terrestrial locomotion seen in any animal they move in bursts of one meter per second which translates to about 2.3 miles per hour that would be a pretty slow human walking pace but for a fish it’s downright speedy the explanation is quite complicated so by looking at this video you can tell that the fish moves by flinging its tail forward it is quite similar to how a kid pumps their legs on a swing to get higher and higher why do i feel like i’ve seen this somewhere fish are something out of this world

Because even when they were frozen the minute you put them back in the water they come back to life and swim away like nothing happened and if that’s not cool enough for you they can even live with half their bodies this fish survived for six months straight with no trunk or tail a golden belly barb was found and bought by a man in thailand apparently it tried to escape from the artificial pond but broke its tail when it fell as a result half of its body along with the tail simply rotted away but the fish didn’t die