The Mekong giant catfish lives in the rivers of the Mekong River in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, and it is said that it eats people, so is this really the case? Let's get to know it in detail.
Mekong giant catfish, how big is this catfish? Can be called giant catfish, catfish people have seen, but have not seen the giant catfish, its largest body length of about 3 meters, weight of about 260 kg, in May 2006, there are local fishermen on the Catch a Mekong River catfish, the body length reached 2.7 meters, the weight of 290 kg, I heard that this is not the largest, said that the largest can reach 3 meters, the weight can reach 350 kg. The Mekong catfish, on the outside, its back is raised, the fish is flattened on the side, the tail is forked, the head is very large and flat, and the adult fish has no teeth.
Legend has it that the Mekong catfish eats man, which can be seen from its growth process, which can see a narrow band of teeth on the bimaxilla, plough bone and plough bone extension of the juvenile fish, and these teeth slowly degenerate as the fish grows, and finally disappear completely. It has also been recorded that this fish has a certain degree of residual feeding, in the process of its growth, its feeding habits also began to change, after it reached about a year, slowly became herbivorous, feeding on filamentous algae and insects and larvae and epiphytes.
That is to say, the Mekong giant catfish also has teeth when it is small, it also eats meat, and it will also eat each other among its kind, but it does not harm humans. After more than a year, it changed to feeding on plankton, and when it grew into a large fish, all its teeth fell out, and the Mekong catfish grew up to be a completely plant-eating animal. After growing up, it also became docile, from small to large, it has not eaten people, and legend has it that it eats people and really wronged it. There are people swimming in the Mekong River, and there are legends of large aquatic animals dragged into the water, which is not what it did, it may be crocodiles. Giant catfish are on the brink of extinction, rarely seen in the wild, and thailand is now heavily artificially reared.
The Mekong catfish is a fish species in the Mekong River Basin, in Thailand, Laos, cambodia and Vietnam, there are 7 dams, and there are many under construction, because of the construction of dams on the Mekong River, more and more large boats in this basin, habitat destruction, making it impossible for giant catfish to migrate to spawn, overfishing and river pollution and other reasons The number of wild catfish is decreasing, so it is assessed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and now has a habitat area of about 4,000 square kilometers.
China's territory of the Lancang River is the Mekong River, in the Lancang River has not seen its shadow, all kinds of information are not recorded, in other countries with this fish, there are special breeding plans, all for the restoration of wild populations, so far, to participate in the protection and breeding of the Mekong Giant Catfish countries are Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand is the most active leader, but also the most important country, in 1986, Thailand also issued a commemorative stamp of the Mekong Giant Catfish.
Between 2000 and 2003, Thailand released about 10,000 artificially bred giant catfish into the Mekong River, and finally because the Mekong River was seriously polluted, the release plan was stopped, and later chose to be stocked in the reservoir, in these countries is also strictly controlled and not allowed to catch the Mekong catfish, but it is difficult to control illegal fishing from time to time, and it will take many efforts to achieve the purpose of protection in the future.