Researchers believe the 13-foot-long, 661-pound stingray hooked in Cambodia earlier this month is the largest freshwater fish ever caught in the world, NBC News reports.
The female stingray was caught on June 13 by 42-year-old fisherman Moul Thun near the remote island of Koh Preah on the Mekong River. According to CNN, a dozen people helped retrieve the stingray, which was given the name “Boramy,” or “full moon” in the Khmer language, an homage to its unique shape.
After Boramy was taken to shore, researchers from the Wonders of Mekong were contacted. They were already in northern Cambodia on a separate project and had previously requested that local fishermen contact them in the event that they found something significant in the area. The research team helped with two large stingray discoveries, but neither of those instances come close to Thun’s catch.
Boramy was measured, weighed and tagged by researchers before getting released back into the river. The tag will now be used to track the stingray’s movement and learn more about its behavior. Zeb Hogan, fish biologist at the University of Nevada, said the record-breaking catch “highlights how little we know about a lot of these giant freshwater fish.”
“You have a fish that’s now the record holder for the world’s largest freshwater fish, and we know little about it,” Hogan added.
The previous record for largest freshwater fish ever caught belonged to a nine-foot-long, 646-pound catfish, which was found in northern Thailand in 2005.
