June 27 is World Fishing Day! For this holiday, our post today: After looking at these truly monsters, you may forever stop wanting to even approach the river. But to silver-haired Jeremy Wade, who hosts Animal Planet's River Monsters, they're just fish. And, yes, he really releases everything he catches.
1. A two-meter, 50-pound shell pike caught in the Trinity River in Texas. (animal.discovery.com)
2. A 68-kilogram arapaima caught in Lake Rio Maderia in Brazil. (animal.discovery.com)
3. A huge sixgill shark caught in the southern part of the Zambezi River in Africa. (animal.discovery.com)
4. Electric eel from the Amazon River, which can grow up to 2.4 m in length and weigh up to 19 kg. (animal.discovery.com)
5. Freshwater sawfish that grows up to 6 meters in length and weighs up to 180 kg. (animal.discovery.com)
6. Huge Siamese carp from the Mekong River. And this is not an adult yet. It can grow up to 3 meters and weigh up to 300 kg, making it one of the largest freshwater fish on our planet. (animal.discovery.com)
7. Large freshwater stingray. This 180-kilogram fish was the largest that Jeremy Wade managed to catch. (animal.discovery.com)
8. The goliath terapon is a distant relative of the piranha, found in the Congo River in the heart of Africa. (animal.discovery.com)
9. 73 kg catfish from northern India. This fish was 1.5 m from head to tail, 1 meter in girth and with a tail span of 1.1 m. (animal.discovery.com)
10. Protopter. The largest individual can reach 2 meters in length. (animal.discovery.com)
11. Vundu catfish, which can reach 1.5 meters in length, and its maximum weight was 54 kg. (animal.discovery.com)
12. New Zealand eel, which can reach 1.5 meters in length. (animal.discovery.com)
13. Nile perch. Can grow up to 1.8 m in length and up to 225 kg in weight. (animal.discovery.com)
14. The black piranha is the largest of the 40 known species of piranha. (animal.discovery.com)
15. Similar to some kind of prehistoric fish, the catfish from the Orinoco River, known in these places as Kuyu-kuyu. It can reach a meter in length and weigh 18 kg. At the back of the fish's body there are extensions that support the caudal fin, which is why it looks like an armadillo fish from another era. (animal.discovery.com)
16. The red-bellied pacu belongs to the genus piranha, but unlike its fellows it feeds mainly on insects and vegetation. It uses its large, human-like teeth to crack nuts, seeds and cut down sea grasses and other food sources. (animal.discovery.com)
17. Short-tailed river stingray. It usually grows up to 1.5 m in diameter and weighs more than 200 kg. (animal.discovery.com)
18. Common catfish weighing 74 kg and 2.2 m long. (animal.discovery.com)
19. White sturgeon is the largest and most primitive freshwater fish in North America. The largest sturgeon in history was more than 6 m in length and weighed almost 800 kg. (animal.discovery.com)
20. Japanese great salamander, the second largest in the world after the Chinese. Grows up to 1.5 m in length. (animal.discovery.com)
21. A close relative of the piranha is the mackerel, which is often called the “vampire fish” because of its long fangs, which can be up to 15 cm in length. This beautiful fish lives in the Orinoco River in Venezuela. (animal.discovery.com)
