The world ’s great fresh water Pisces the Fishes ever recorded – a colossus stingray the size of it of a gilded piano – has been caught and put out in the Mekong River in northeasterly Cambodia .
After getting a heads up from local fisherman the night before , a team of scientist from the Wonders of Mekong enquiry project helped snag , tag , and measure the ray before it was release back into the river on June 14 , according toFISHBIOwhose scientists were also at the scene .
The distaff elephantine freshwater stingray ( Urogymnus polylepis ) was discover to weigh in at 300 kilograms ( 661 pounds ) and measure 2.2 meters wide by 4 meters long ( 7 foot 2 inches by 13 feet 1 column inch ) from nozzle to stinger .
Image courtesy of Sinsamout Ounboundisane / FISHBIO.
This weigh - in proved she was the gravid freshwater Pisces on record book , beating the premature phonograph recording held by a Mekong gargantuan catfish ( Pangasianodon gigas ) captured in 2005 that weighed 293 kg ( 645 pounds ) .
The small tag was insert at the base of the ray ’s tail with a diminished surgical incision . This will gently beam back acoustic signal to 36 retrievers along the Mekong and other nearby river that will be able to track the trend and migration of the creature .
This prodigious species can be found lurking across many of the large river and estuaries of Southeast Asia and Borneo . While its insect bite is cover in toxic mucous secretion that can pierce bone , it ’s generally considered to be a docile giant and rarely attacks man wanton .
Like many gargantuan fish of Southeast Asia , the giant freshwater stingray is in trouble . Under theIUCN Red List of Threatened Species , the species is regard endangered with extinction after becoming more and more jeopardise by pollution , climate change , human development , and overfishing .
Many Mekong Pisces species take lengthy migration as part of their life cycles to access different flood plain , deep pools , and flood forests – which is why the tatter late seize to this big beauty is so important . trivial is known about where and when particular species embark on their trek , but researchers are desperate to find out so they can learn how to protect these environs and , in turning , their denizen .
" liberal fish globally are endangered . They’rehigh - value species . They take a long clock time to mature . So if they ’re angle before they maturate , they do n’t have a luck to reproduce , " Zeb Hogan , Wonders of the Mekong loss leader from the Department of Biology at the University of Nevada in Reno , toldNPR .
" A lot of these expectant fish are migratory , so they need large areas to live . They ’re impact by things like habitat atomisation from dams , obviously touch on by overfishing . So about 70 pct of giant fresh water Pisces globally are menace with extinction , and all of the Mekong species . "
" The fact that the Pisces the Fishes can still get this cock-a-hoop is a hopeful sign for the Mekong River , ” Hogan added .
