When scientists heard reports that a large, mysterious fish had been caught in Cambodia in 2020, excitement stirred. Could this be the “Mekong Ghost,” they asked – an elusive fish that hadn’t been seensince 2005 and was feared extinct?
Photos of the fish and its telltale identifiers – an odd-shaped mouth and a protruding knob at its jaw – seemed to confirm it.
But the fish, which can grow as large as 66 pounds, was sold before scientists could get a closer look. It didn’t “feel like definitive proof,” said Zeb Hogan, a research biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, and head of the US government-funded Wonders of the Mekong project, an initiative to study and conserve one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world.
In full: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/21/asia/mekong-ghost-fish-cambodia-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
