Some fishermen have been casting their nets to catch fish in a pond, where many different species have been captured, including the alligator gar (scientific name: Lepisosteus osseus), the knifefish (scientific name: Notopterus notopterus), the pomfret (Pampus argenteus), and the giant gourami (Osphronemus goramy)…
The caught creature is an Arapaima gigas.
However, the surprise came with the last catch; a fish weighing about 50 – 60 kg made the fishermen struggle for a while before they could pull it ashore. It turned out that the creature caught in the net was an Arapaima gigas, originating from the tropical regions of South America.
This large fish can reach lengths of over 2.5 meters and can weigh nearly 100 kg (the largest recorded specimen weighs up to 200 kg). The Arapaima gigas is often used as food and for ornamental purposes, leading to significant hunting pressure in the rivers of South America.
Even the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) faces challenges in assessing the population of this fish in the Amazon River basin, which is why the Arapaima gigas is listed as data deficient in the IUCN Red List.
