Amphibious fish are fish that are able to leave water for extended periods of time. About 11 distantly related genera of fish are considered amphibious. This suggests that fish independently evolved amphibious traits. These fish use a range of terrestrial locomotory modes, such as lateral undulation, tripod-like walking (using paired fins and tail), and jumping. Many of these locomotory modes incorporate multiple combinations of pectoral, pelvic and tail fin movement. ^*

Many ancient fish had lung-like organs, and a few, such as the lungfish, still do. Some of these ancient "lunged" fish were the ancestors of modern amphibians. However, in most recent fish species these organs evolved into the swim bladders, which help control buoyancy. Having no lung-like organs, modern amphibious fish and also many fish in oxygen poor water, use other methods such as their gills or their skin to breathe air. Amphibious fish may also have eyes adapted to allow them to see clearly in air, despite the density differences between air and water. ^*

List of amphibious fish

Lung breathers

• Various "lunged" fish:. These are now extinct. A few of this group were ancestors of the basal tetropods that led to all tetropods: amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
• Lungfish (Dipnoi): Six species, have limb like fins, and can breathe air. Some are obligate air breathers. Some species will bury in the mud when the body of water they live in dries up, surviving up to two years until water returns.

Gill or skin breathers

• Rockskippers: These are found in Panama. These fish come onto land to catch prey and escape aquatic predators. They often come out of water for up to 20 minutes.
• Wooly sculpin: Found in tide pools along the Pacific coast, these fish will leave water if the oxygen levels get low and can breathe air for 24 hours.
• Mudskippers: Probably the most land adapted of fish, mudskippers are found in mangrove swamps in Africa and the Indo-Pacific, they frequently come onto land and can survive in air for up to three and a half days. ^*
• Anableps: Found in Central and South America, the unusual "four-eyed" and "four-sexed" fish can move on land for short periods of a time. Its pupils are divided into two. The upper half is adapted to see in air, and the lower half is for seeing in water.
• Eels: Some eels, such as the European eel and the American eel, can live for an extended time out of water and can crawl on land if the soil is moist.
• Snakehead fish: Snakeheads are obligate air breathers, using their suprabranchial organ, which is a primitive labyrinth organ. The Northern Snakehead has a limited capacity to wriggle over wet grass and mud.
• Walking catfish (Clarias batrachus): This Southeast Asian fish can "walk" by wriggling and using its pectoral fins. It moves between the slow-moving, and often stagnant and temporary bodies of water in which it lives.
• Climbing gourami: This African and Southeast Asian fish are capable of moving from pool to pool over land by using their pectoral fins, caudal peduncle and gill covers as a means of locomotion. It is said that these fish move at night in groups. They breath air using a labyrinth organ.
• Eel catfish (Channallabes apus): Lives in swamps in Africa, known to hunt beetles on land ^*.

Ichthyology