Bowfin (Amia calva)

Bowfin, also called the ruddy bowfin, mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout or choupique, is a ray-finned fish native to North America. Regarded as a relict, it is one of only two surviving species of the Halecomorphi, a group that first appeared during the Early Triassic around 250 million years ago, and it is often considered a living fossil for retaining morphological characteristics of its early ancestors; its closest living relatives are the gars, with the two groups united in the clade Holostei.