The rapala (Escahamata piscatoria) is a common salmonite of the rivers of Fennoscandia.  These small creatures, with their streamlined shape and powerful jet-propulsion, are superb hunters and eat anything smaller than themselves, sometimes even collecting into packs to tackle larger game.

    Rapalas are most at home in wide, slow-moving streams and lakes, where they drift through the water, mimicking small fish with their movements and the eyespots on their shells, infiltrating the shoals of their prey, and then striking unexpectedly.  The cryptic patterning of a rapala's shell carries a twofold advantage; besides being a useful tool in infiltrating shoals of small fish, the eyespots also confuse predators, which will attack the "head" of the rapala, only to find unpalatable shell.

(Text by Daniel Bensen)