What is a Monster Fish?

Monster fish are the world's largest, most dangerous and strangest fish. Some species of fish are bizarre and frightening. Large species of catfish, fish with heads that resemble alligators, even tiny fish are monster fish. Some species have existed since ancient times. There are 25,000 species of fish in the world. Only the strongest survive. 

Catfish

• One of the largest fish in the world, the Mekong giant catfish reaches 10-feet long and weighs up to 650 pounds. It lives in the lower half of the Mekong River in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Because of overfishing, this fish’s numbers have dropped 95 percent. 


• The candiru catfish is a parasitic 6-inch long freshwater catfish in South America's Amazon region. Small, eel like and translucent, it is hard to see in the water. It enters an organism, feeds on the host's blood and causes the host to swell. With its round mouth and sharp teeth, the candiru asu catfish bites the flesh, enters the organism and leaves a wound that resembles a bullet hole.


• The largest catfish in the Amazon region, the piraiba catfish grows 9 1/2-feet long. With its 16-inch long mouth, it eats animals and man.


• With a long scaleless body, flat head and rows of sandpaper-like teeth, wels catfish grow to be 10-feet long and 330 pounds in weight. Its vacuum-like mouth sucks prey and swallows it whole. Some are known to have attacked man at Lake Schlachtensee near Berlin, Germany.  

Other Monster Fish

• The largest freshwater fish in North America, the white sturgeon has been around for a million years. The largest one was 20-feet long and weighed 1,800 pounds. It is found in coastal Alaska to Baja, California. The white sturgeon has a primitive backbone, no teeth, bad eyesight, gets by with its sense of smell and only eats smaller fish, crustaceans and insects. 


• Existing over 100 million years ago, the alligator gar grows to 10-feet long and to a weight of 400 pounds. It has an alligator-like snout, a double row of dagger-like teeth and armor-like scales. Because it breathes air, it is able to live above water for two hours at a time. It lives in the southeastern United States.


• Shaped like a flying saucer, the giant freshwater stingray grows to 1,200 pounds, 16.5-feet long and 6 1/2-feet wide. Perhaps Earth's largest freshwater fish, this stingray lives in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Waving its 8-inch barb that sits on top of its tail all around, it leaves a deep puncture wound at the victim's foot or lower leg. When the stingray pulls the barb out of the victim's flesh, it rips the flesh and spreads its poison everywhere. The poison is located in the gland in its tail.