How long is the longest ever seen catfish of the world?

fischkringli · Post by **fischkringli** » 02 Mar 2009, 15:55

I only know a 2 m long silurus glanis, but there could be a bigger one.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 02 Mar 2009, 16:01

Depends on what you mean by "seen". There are records of 2.7m , but records for larger exist - apparently about 4.5-5 meters. Although those are pretty rare.

Here is a list of sizes in the Planet Catfish Database, in order of largest first:
Cat-eLog search by size

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Mats

kim m · Post by **kim m** » 02 Mar 2009, 16:38

I have friends who have landed S. glanis well over 2 metres i Ebro (Spain). There's roumers of monsters of 3+ metres from eastern Europe/Russia, but I haven't seen pics.

Richard B · Post by **Richard B** » 02 Mar 2009, 17:19

http://www.fisch-hitparade.de/rekorde/wels102,8.jpg

there are plenty of pics if you do a google search of large S.Glanis - weights are quoted but not size

I seem to recall a book on fish from my youth (many years ago

) that was very wordy with few pics, which included a desription of a fish that was netted somewhere in europe weighing close to 500lbs. If that is correct, it would have been an absolute gargantuan monster.

TwoTankAmin · Post by **TwoTankAmin** » 03 Mar 2009, 03:21

This one looks pretty big and it does give a length.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ntcatfish/
and
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/a ... llery.html

L number Banana · Post by **L number Banana** » 03 Mar 2009, 04:14

I think the largest may still be the one in the cat-elog as mentioned above by Mats P. lots of pictures there too.
It says:

The worlds largest catfish, the largest example of which, caught in the River Dnepr (flowing through the Ukraine into the Black Sea), was measured at 5m (16ft, 5in) long and wieghed 306kg (675lb).

Any archivists from the Ukraine here? It was in 1932.
Interesting article on him here: http://www.predator-fishing.co.uk/artic ... theold.htm

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 03 Mar 2009, 09:57

TwoTankAmin wrote:This one looks pretty big and it does give a length.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ntcatfish/
and
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/a ... llery.html

The first link gives a size of 2.7m, and that is the largest recorded instance of P. gigas (and the HEAVIEST catfish ever recorded, as far as I understand), but S. glanis grows longer.

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Mats

Mike_Noren · Post by **Mike_Noren** » 03 Mar 2009, 15:08

I looked through some trophy-fishing websites, and the largest S. glanis which seemed reasonably well-documented (photographed from the side, with reference object in the picture, and recognized by sportfishing organization) was 2.57 meters.
That doesn't mean they can't grow any bigger, but considering that 2 - 2.3 m fish appear fairly common but I couldn't find a single one longer than 2.57 m, it seems doubtful the species, or at least european specimens, grow to 5 m.

Post by **Silurus** » 03 Mar 2009, 16:37

The largest authenticated Silurus glanis is 2.78 m long (from the Po River delta in Italy).

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 03 Mar 2009, 20:12

I have "seen" one of my catfish, a panaque for about 6yrs now do I win?

Matt

L number Banana · Post by **L number Banana** » 03 Mar 2009, 21:52

fischkringli · Post by **fischkringli** » 12 Mar 2009, 12:50

Now i know the biggest one, thanks. You could open the discussion theme which Silurus glanis is the biggest?

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 12 Mar 2009, 15:53

fischkringli wrote:Now i know the biggest one, thanks. You could open the discussion theme which Silurus glanis is the biggest?

What do you mean? That is one species, do you mean WHERE it is found to be biggest, or which individual is the biggest one?

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Mats

fischkringli · Post by **fischkringli** » 13 Mar 2009, 13:42

It is just because of the entrys of Silurus and Mike_Noren

.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 13 Mar 2009, 13:54

fischkringli wrote:It is just because of the entrys of Silurus and Mike_Noren .

I'm still unsure as to what you want to prove/find out? The fish grows LARGE, but it's hard to say exactly how large - at least 2.5 meter seems to be likely. Stories of larger ones exist - sufficient to make us and Fishbase for example show much larger size than 2.5 meter. Is that really unusua, yes, of course. You also do not see 1.5-1.8 meter Pike very often, and they are caught much more often than Silurus glanis - simply because they are more frequent in lakes and rivers.

Really large specimens of any fish are rare, because it takes a long time before they grow that large, and many meet their fate before they reach the "record size".

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Mats

Mike_Noren · Post by **Mike_Noren** » 13 Mar 2009, 15:43

fischkringli wrote:It is just because of the entrys of Silurus and Mike_Noren .

Mine was the biggest well-documented one I could find a picture of on the internet; Silurus's is the biggest well-documented one known. So, Silurus's Silurus is the one which counts.

How long is the longest ever seen catfish of the world?

How long is the longest ever seen catfish of the world?

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