Which species of catfish grows the largest?

Catfish, also called sheatfish, has many species and is found all over the world. Common ones include the Chinese catfish, the big-mouth catfish, the walking catfish, the Egyptian pointed-tooth catfish, and so on, among which there are some particularly huge species weighing over 100 jin. So which species of catfish grows the largest? Let's take a look with the editor below.

1. Wels catfish

The wels catfish is also called the man-eating giant catfish; it has this alias because it is the only catfish in the world with a record of eating people. In Russia, there was once an incident of a catfish eating a person. In 2008, three people swimming in a river in Berlin were dragged away by an unidentified creature, and it was later confirmed that they were very likely swallowed by a wels catfish.

When it comes to the catfish species that grows the largest in the world, it is definitely the wels catfish. The wels catfish generally has a body length of around 3 m, with the largest reaching 5 m long and weighing more than 600 jin. The wels catfish has no scales at all over its body and is very smooth. It has a terrifying huge mouth, and its teeth are not only numerous but also very sharp. It is mainly distributed in the lakes and rivers of Europe.

2. Mekong catfish

The Mekong catfish is the largest catfish apart from the wels catfish, with a body length generally reaching 1.3 m. On May 1, 2013, Thai fishermen caught a giant catfish 2.7 m long and weighing 586 jin in the Mekong River basin. Some researchers subsequently claimed that this was "the largest freshwater fish in the world" ever caught by humans in Thailand.

In recent years, with environmental destruction and human hunting, the number of Mekong giant catfish has sharply decreased by about 80%, and in 2003 it was listed as a highly endangered species. If not controlled, it will sooner or later become one of the world's top ten endangered animals. The Mekong giant catfish is distributed along the Mekong River and in Southeast Asia, mainly living in the middle and lower layers of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ponds, and mostly active in coastal areas.

3. Tank goonch

It is mainly found in the Great Kali River on the border between India and Nepal. There was once a legend of a river monster eating people, and in fact it was exactly this giant catfish called the tank goonch, because local people had the custom of water burial, and the tank goonch living in the river often ate carrion, thereby developing the habit of attacking living people.

The famous biologist and host of the program River Monsters, Jeremy Wade, once caught one of them, weighing 73 kg and nearly 183 cm long.

The above are the catfish species that grow the largest. Catfish is rich in nutrition. Except for the roe, which has an off flavor and is not suitable for eating, the whole body is a treasure. Catfish is a valuable nutritious delicacy, recorded as early as in historical books, and can be compared with shark fin and wild soft-shelled turtle, making it a rare delicacy among fish.

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