Name: Giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis)
Maximum Size: 118 inches (300 centimeters), 661.5 pounds (300 kilograms)
Habitat: Mekong River Basin, Southeast Asia
Name: Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas)
Maximum Size: 118 inches (300 centimeters), 661.4 pounds (300 kilograms)
Habitat: Mekong River Basin, Southeast Asia
Biologist Zeb Hogan holds a taimen, a giant member of the salmon family, while searching for megafishes in Mongolia. Hogan is leader of the newly launched Megafishes Project, the first effort to document, study, and protect the world’s largest freshwater fish.
The project aims to improve conservation of megafishes—species that grow to at least six feet (two meters) and weigh more than 200 pounds (90 kilograms). They include the mammoth taimen, catfish the size of bears, and half-ton river stingrays.
Hogan calls the giant fish “the real-life Loch Ness monsters and Bigfoots of the aquatic world.”
Source: National Geographic
