If you think the strangest looking creatures are far away from humans, down in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, you might want to look away now.
An enormous catfish was pulled out of the Italian river Po – yes, Europe, and yes, near civilisation – by an ambitious angler.
In a blog post, Alessandro Biancardi said he was sure the fish was “special” but he “never imagined” that it would measure a shocking 285cm in length – bagging him a world record for the largest catfish ever caught.
Biancardi said he was alone when he caught the creature, but he caught it all on camera for his fishing team MADCAT and put the video on YouTube.
He explained that the fish took the bait, and then “stood still” for some seconds, before “starting a very complicated fight” which lasted 40 minutes.
Then, he managed to pull it to the surface, soon realising he had “hooked a monster” – claiming: “I was alone, facing the biggest catfish I [had] ever seen in 23 years.”
He miraculously managed to drag it ashore but had to swim after his own boat when the currents began pulling it away from him.
Biancardi enlisted the help of 10 witnesses to watch as he measured the beast on the shore. And that was when he found that he had broken the current world record for the largest fish ever caught.
There’s clearly something in the water in Po, because the current record holder was also caught there back in 2010 (although that fish was 40cm shorter than Biancardi’s whopper).
But just how old is this catfish? How did it get to be so long? And... are there more like it?
Sadly, we won’t be finding out the answers to these essential questions anytime soon, as Biancardi decided to let the animal go back into the river.
He explained: “I was very curious about the weight but I feared to stress the rare specimen too much so I decided to release it, hoping it could give another angler the same joy he gave to me.”
But, his fish will still qualify for the International Game Fish Association’s catch-and-release length record – and could oust the last fish by four centimetres.
Here’s some proof of the catch for your nightmares: