Justfindit.se Magazine

Monster fishes in rivers and seas

Monster fishes in rivers and seas. Here we can read about beasts, rarest animals, mutated fishes and aggressive hunters, fully adapted to the environment they live in.

As child I admired fishing with my brother and father. We mostly catched trouts and other sweetwater fishes on Balkans. I became very inspired to publish this article when I saw a TV programme called River monsters.

As an author and owner of this magazine, I have decided to write a reportage about monster fishes. I tried to get an interview with Jeremy Wade who is the programme host and a biologist but unfortunately his team told me that he is very busy with his new TV projects. So now I am giving you this reportage instead.

What is a monster fish? What property requires to be classified as monster? In European rivers there are no real monsters. We have e.g Catfish. It can be big and heavy and it could pull a human being or some other smaller animal down in to the deep. But that fenomena is nothing that happens every day. If it happens any person it can be bad experience but the risk is very little.

Piranhas

What about Amazon river in South America? That river is a home for piranhas. Almost everyone knows about those predators. They attack in big groups and use their razor-sharp teeth for killing the victim. But is piranha dangerous for us people? According to The Spruce Pets people actually eat the piranhas. Their attacks on humans have occurred in some situations. For being classified as dangerous they must be in a shoal of at least 300 to 500 fishes. According to Popular Science we can see that it can take five minutes to strip the flesh off a human.

Sharks

We also know monsters in seas and oceans. For example there are white sharks or tiger sharks. They are real beasts and if they catch a human there is almost no chance to survive. Sharks do not like eating humans. They attack them because their movements in water can remind off seals. And sharks love them.

In this magazine we can not mention all monster fishes but we can take a look at some little bit different species.

Arapaima

We have Arapaima. It lives in Amazon, South America, Central America and Malaysia. This big high speed monster can hurt or even kill any other living creature if it hits the target with the head when moving towards it. They are like water missiles. If they kill human with a strong hit then it is possible that piranhas come and eat the dead body. They clean after Arapaima.

Glyphis Shark, Needlefish and Goliath Tigerfish

Another one interesting fish is Glyphis Shark - one of the rarest animals on earth. I never heard about it before I saw it in River monsters. And since it is relatively a new species it is not possible to decide whether this fish is a killer or not. If it can grow enough like other known killer sharks then it is one of them. But if they attack in a group of 5-6 fishes they could of course be very dangerous.

I remember one of deadly cases with a Needlefish in Indonesia. The fish is small and short but it can launch very powerful bursts of speed and shoot itself out of the water and through body parts. If it hits a human in the eye then the outcome can be deadly.

As tourist I would think twice before I jump in that nice blue Indonesian sea.

In Congo in Africa there is The Goliath Tigerfish. This fish appears to be the only African freshwater fish that is actually known to attack humans. When you take a look at this fish you will probably understand that this statement is true. There is a known boating accident, where victims disappeared under somewhat perplexing circumstances according to KnowledgeNuts. The same article tells us that this fish as top predators is still important, stabilizing element of the river ecosystem.

Mutations and nuclear accident

There is one more interesting detail that we must mention in this article. It is mutations. If we think about Chernobyl and its nuclear accident with nuclear power plant we could ask ourselves following question:
Are there any monsters in the radioactive waters?

Chernobyl cooling pond offers the catfish populations an isolated habitat. It is s place free from predators because it is an exclusion zone. Catfishes are maybe mutated but not because of radiation. According to Earth Touch News Network they are big just because of this isolated place where no one hunts them down. The place is also packed with ample prey.

Papuan Black Bass from Papua New Guinea

We have one more interesting candidate. It is Papuan Black Bass from Papua New Guinea, also called for Lutjanus goldiei according to Wikipedia. This fish lives in jungle rivers and river mouths. It also have entered saltwater. They are known to be aggressive hunters and they seem to be responsible for different attacks around New Britain.

Evolution and ecosystem

Monsters or not, all mentioned fishes actually are a part of the ecosystem and they are needed. They are fully adapted to the environment they live in. If our planet does not experience big climate and nature changes the evolution will probably not make any changes on those perfect creatures.