Slashdot Mirror

Nah, that's where the Eels are kept.

Virtually all fish have two sets of jaws - oral jaws and pharyngeal jaws, also known as the pharyngeal mill. The pharyngeal mill is normally used for crushing and grinding hard foods, such as crustaceans, but morays have evolved the ability to use them to grab prey held in the oral jaws and pull it into the oesaphagus. There's a good interview here: http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/it em.php?news=1367

I was researching this just yesterday so I'm not surprised to see it here. That fish is a whole heckuvva lot larger than the catfish I used to catch and eat as a kid.

There are some great photos here at National Geographic's Article on the fish. My favorite photo is the one with an elderly gent cutting a steak larger than his torso. Dang! At that size I wonder if they taste any good?

Of course, Giant Catfish are the stuff of legends, and usually have a kernal of truth. (Links to other whoppers there as well)

Usually tales of the "big one that got away" or, in this case, "Catfish the size of Volkswagon Bugs" are dismissed, but according to Loren Coleman's "Mysterious America" (March 2004 ed. /My affiliate link), Chapter 10, even Mark Twain claims to have seen one more than six feet long and weighing 250 pounds in the Mississippi River. (How he managed to weigh it is not recorded ^_-). But cryptozoologists still try to hunt them down, even this summer as reported here. Chester Moore, the organizer of the event, claims that preservation is their goal as well as discovery. This is the biggest North American expedition to research cryptid catfish I've heard of, so it will be interesting to see if they get lucky. They'll need to discover the fish first, though, before talking about preservation. ::)

Preservation of giant catfish is part of the WWF's mission, too, in Thailand & Cambodia. Just this month four giant catfish bred in captivity were released into the Mekong. So Giant Catfish are real in the Amazon, Europe, Asia, etc., but cryptozoological here in the States. Would be cool if they weren't, though.

This psuedoreport brought to you by Insomnia(TM)

Another page that outlines the hoax, figured I'd post it for the hell of it.

I don't think these are the first GM fish to go on sale. The Taikong Corporation, a Taiwanese company, marketed Gong's TK1 GM Zebra fish earlier in the year according to Practical Fishkeeping magazine. News story These fish are still (as far as I know) awaiting licensing in Singapore (one of the world's biggest producers of tropical fish) and one company has been prosecuted for importing them. Illegal GM fish siezed

I don't think these are the first GM fish to go on sale. The Taikong Corporation, a Taiwanese company, marketed Gong's TK1 GM Zebra fish earlier in the year according to Practical Fishkeeping magazine. News story These fish are still (as far as I know) awaiting licensing in Singapore (one of the world's biggest producers of tropical fish) and one company has been prosecuted for importing them. Illegal GM fish siezed

Much better for the individual fish.