Channa is a genus of predatory fish in the family Channidae, commonly known as snakeheads, native to freshwater habitats in Asia. This genus contains about 50 scientifically described species. The genus has a wide natural distribution extending from Iraq in the west, to Indonesia and China in the east, and parts of Siberia in the Far East. A particularly high richness of species exists in Myanmar (Burma) and northeastern India, and many Channa species live nowhere else.

Diets of the various species of Channa include fish, amphibians (like frogs), snakes, rodents, birds, and invertebrates (insects and crustaceans).

They have a labyrinth organ, which allows them to breathe air for short periods, and they use this adaptation to travel across land in the event that their habitat becomes inhospitable. They are mostly solitary or live in monogamous pairs that are highly aggressive towards outsiders of their own species, but Channa pleurophthalma often occurs in small groups. Larger species are mostly nestbrooding (making a nest of vegetation at the water surface), and the dwarfs mostly paternal mouthbrooding, but exceptions occur; the large Channa barca is a paternal mouthbrooder and the dwarf Channa bleheri is a free-spawner (the eggs float to the surface where the parents take care of them, but they do not mouthbrood or built a nest)