Giant Grouper, the world's biggest bony fish
A grouper starts out his life as female and later switches sex to male. It can weigh up to 400kg and has at least seven rows of teeth on the middle of its lower jaw. And it looks rather ugly.
Celine Cousteau provides a good measure of scale as she dives near a goliath grouper. This endangered species is the largest type of grouper in the western Atlantic. Growing to lengths of 8.2 feet (2.5 m), this grouper can weigh as much as 800 pounds (363 kg).
Goliath grouper (Epinephelus itajara)
and Cigar minnows (Decapterus macarellus)
Offshore Jupiter, Florida, USA
by Douglas David Seifert, Jupiter, Florida, USA
Goliaths are the largest members of the grouper family and are endangered throughout their
range in the Atlantic Ocean. In autumn, they gather around deep-water wrecks, caves, and
ledges off the coasts of Florida to form mating aggregations. Schooling cigar minnows form dense
clouds around the groupers to seek protection from predatory fish, such as jacks and barracuda.
Posted on Friday, Feb. 27, 2004 From: "FISHING ADVENTURES THAILAND"
Subject: The Mekong giant catfish current All Tackle record was broken yesterday!
Just a few words to say that we have finally broken yesterday the current All Tackle record for the Mekong giant catfish (56.50 kg held by English Terry Robert Mather). Terry's record catch was in February, last year.
Yesterday Feb. 27, English angler Richard Ainsworth (from Bedford) caught a 64.00 kg Mekong Giant Catfish (pictured below). The fish was 187 cm long for a girth of 103 cm.