Pictured: Flower eel Source/Baidu Encyclopedia
Xinmin Evening News (reporter Chen Hao) Yesterday, netizen "Lingang Devil King" reported to this newspaper that he caught a strange eel in the city's wild river. The netizen has 20 years of wild fishing experience and has never seen such a fish. The reporter confirmed to experts that this is a flower eel, which is very rare in the wild.
Source/Video (provided by netizen "Lingang Devil") Screenshot (the same below)
Netizen "Lingang Devil King" Mr. Song told reporters that on the evening of November 19, he fished in a wild river near the Luchao Port Sluice, when the buoy moved, he reacted quickly, and the rod was found to be very heavy. "At first it felt strange, heavy, there was no struggle, and I thought I had caught a piece of wood." After about 10 seconds, the "wood" twisted twice, and Mr. Song found that it was a big fish that was hooked. "Maybe it was too cold, and the fish didn't seem to ease up until this point, and began to struggle, with great force." In the end, Mr. Song spent more than half an hour walking the fish, and finally dragged the big fish ashore.
At this time, Mr. Song began to be a little stunned. He prides himself on wild fishing for 20 years, and has caught almost any kind of fish, but this fish is a bit strange. Because it resembles a river eel, but it is different from a river eel. "The river eel generally weighs about 1 kilogram, 2 kilograms is rare, and it is thicker and larger, weighing about 4 kilograms; the river eel has a white or yellow belly and a blue back, while this strange eel has a white belly and a back that is not blue, but the color of the black stone like catfish. The strangest thing is that it has spots that river eels don't have, like patterns. ”
In addition, Mr. Song also noticed some details. The "strange eel" has large and covered with a layer of white, has tentacle-like "horns" near the nose, has a wider and flatter head than ordinary river eels, and a tail that resembles a fish.
Mr. Song also added to reporters that he caught this fish with ordinary nylon rope and ordinary red earthworms. He estimates that the fish is 80 cm long and weighs about 4 kg.
What kind of fish is this? The reporter consulted Dr. Liu Liping, associate professor of the School of Fisheries and Life Sciences of Shanghai Ocean University, and Dr. Liu introduced that this is a flower eel.
Flower eel, also known as perch eel, brook eel, is a species of rayfin fish, eel order, eel suborder, eel family, in China is mainly distributed in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the lower reaches of the Minjiang River and Hainan Island and other places, the Ou River, Feiyun River and Lingjiang River water system in southern Zhejiang is also one of its main production areas, mostly found in the middle, lower reaches and tributaries of the Ou River, downstream and tributaries, especially the distribution of the Nanxi River, a tributary of the Oujiang River.
However, most of the flower eels seen in China are imported from the Philippines and other places for commercial breeding, while in Shanghai, only Shanghai Ocean University has carried out scientific research and experimental breeding of flower eels. China's native flower eel is listed as a "national second-class protected animal", which is very rare.
Dr. Liu said that the flower eel and the Japanese eel have a similar life history, and also need to migrate to the sea to spawn, and the juvenile fish swim back to fresh water to grow. The reason why wild flower eels are rare is because of the intensity of fishing for eel fry, and the flower eel fry are indiscriminately caught offshore; on the other hand, because the habitat of adult flower eels is mostly in the mountains and rivers through the sea, the habitat is destroyed or polluted, and the age of sexual maturity of flower eels often takes more than ten years, and most wild flower eels are caught before reproductive migration, and the breeding population is small.
At present, the netizen "Lingang Devil King" has released this flower eel.