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fastest fish in the world :: Article Creator

Mekong Giant Catfish

Common Name: Mekong giant catfish Scientific Name: P. Gigas IUCN Red List Status:? Critically endangered

Least Concern Extinct

Current Population Trend: Decreasing

The Mekong giant catfish is the official freshwater heavyweight champion of the world. According to the Guinness Book of Records, a nine-foot-long individual caught in northern Thailand in 2005 weighted an astounding 646 pounds, making it the largest exclusively freshwater fish ever recorded.

Despite its gargantuan size, but also because of it, the giant catfish lives a tenuous existence in the murky waters of its native river, Southeast Asia's Mekong, where its numbers have plummeted so dramatically that the species is on the brink of extinction.

Appearance, diet, and behavior

Gray to white in color and lacking stripes, the Mekong giant catfish has very low-set eyes, which gives it a slightly sorrowful appearance. They are distinguished from other large catfish species by their near-total lack of barbels, or "whiskers," as well as by the absence of teeth. (Juveniles have barbels, but these features shrink as they age.)

As babies, they feed on zooplankton in the river and are known to be cannibalistic. After about a year, they become herbivores, and eat plants and algae.

The Mekong giant catfish has one of the fastest growth rates of any fish in the world. It can reach up to 440 pounds in only six years. They can live up to 60 years.

Highly migratory, the species requires large stretches of river and very specific environmental conditions for its seasonal journey to spawn and breed. While scientists don't know exactly how the fish move, the Mekong giant catfish is believed to spend much of its time feeding in Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake and then migrating hundreds of miles north to spawning grounds in Thailand.

Decline

These giant catfish were once plentiful throughout the Mekong basin, but their numbers are believed to have dropped by at least 95 percent over the past century. With no population figures available, estimates of the decline are based on the fall in the number of fish caught. Some experts think there may be only a few hundred, or even fewer, adults left in the Mekong River.

Overfishing is the primary cause of the giant catfish's decline, but damming of Mekong tributaries, destruction of spawning and breeding grounds, and siltation (a process by which water becomes dirty with fine mineral particles) have also taken a huge toll.

Conservation efforts

Conservationists have focused on the Mekong giant catfish as a flagship species to promote conservation on the river. It is now illegal in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to harvest the critically endangered species, though giant catfishes still are illicitly caught, with some sold to restaurants in Vietnam.

In Thailand, Mekong giant catfishes have been successfully bred in artificial ponds, but efforts to introduce these fish in the wild have largely failed.

440-pound giant catfish saved

Watch as a Thai community rescues a 440-pound Mekong giant catfish displaced by flooding in 2017.


Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

Common Name: Atlantic bluefin tuna Scientific Name: Thunnus thynnus Average Life Span In The Wild: 15 years Size relative to a 6-ft man: IUCN Red List Status:? Least concern

Least Concern Extinct

Current Population Trend: Decreasing

The Atlantic bluefin tuna is one of the largest, fastest, and most gorgeously colored of all the world's fishes. Their torpedo-shaped, streamlined bodies are built for speed and endurance. Their coloring—metallic blue on top and shimmering silver-white on the bottom—helps camouflage them from above and below. And their voracious appetite and varied diet pushes their average size to a whopping 6.5 feet in length and 550 pounds, although much larger specimens are not uncommon.

Unfortunately for the species however, bluefin meat also happens to be regarded as surpassingly delicious, particularly among sashimi eaters, and overfishing throughout their range has driven their numbers to critically low levels.

Habitat and Migration

Atlantic bluefins are warm-blooded, a rare trait among fish, and are comfortable in the cold waters off Newfoundland and Iceland, as well as the tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea, where they go each year to spawn. They are among the most ambitiously migratory of all fish, and some tagged specimens have been tracked swimming from North American to European waters several times a year.

Fight and Speed

They are prized among sport fishers for their fight and speed, shooting through the water with their powerful, crescent-shaped tails up to 43 miles per hour. They can retract their dorsal and pectoral fins into slots to reduce drag. And some scientists think the series of "finlets" on their tails may even serve to reduce water turbulence.

Diet

Bluefins attain their enormous size by gorging themselves almost constantly on smaller fish, crustaceans, squid, and eels. They will also filter-feed on zooplankton and other small organisms and have even been observed eating kelp. The largest tuna ever recorded was an Atlantic bluefin caught off Nova Scotia that weighed 1,496 pounds.

Overfishing

Bluefin tuna have been eaten by humans for centuries. However, in the 1970s, demand and prices for large bluefins soared worldwide, particularly in Japan, and commercial fishing operations found new ways to find and catch these sleek giants. As a result, bluefin stocks, especially of large, breeding-age fish, have plummeted, and international conservation efforts have led to curbs on commercial takes. Nevertheless, at least one group says illegal fishing in Europe has pushed the Atlantic bluefin populations there to the brink of extinction.





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