‘Longer than the forester’, RTV Dordrecht described the giant Dead European catfish that was found this week in the Biesbosch. With a length of 2.40 meters, the fish had almost been a record holder for the Benelux – last fall, a 2.46 meter long alive, the presence of the animal had been imprisoned. to be found.
Catfishes appeal to the imagination, because of their height, their intelligence and their status as a top preacher: they eat amphibians, water birds and sometimes even pigeons in addition to other fish.
Although their number in the Netherlands also increases in the large rivers in recent years, little is known about the species. That is why biologists from Wageningen Marine Research, among others, are currently investigating their hunting and eating behavior in the Maas, at the Lith’s Lith, on behalf of Rijkswaterstaat and the Ministry of LNV.
Incidentally, the European catfish is not yet the most striking fish that has ever been found in the Biesbosch. In 2020 there was temporarily an 80 centimeter long soaprik: a jawless fish with a round vacuum cleaner -like mouth full of teeth. With those mouths, soaps suck on fish and then parasitize on their blood.
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