Indian killer Catfish ?

in recent years 3 swimmers in the indian kali river have been witnessed to disappear suddenly and inexplicably and intensive search has recovered not trace of the victims , not even clothing

various explainations have been proffered - someconvincing , some not

now an expedition leader jeremy wade believes it has an answer



a abnormally sized gonch catfish - which is believed to have developed a tase for human dlesh asfter feasting on the partially cremated remains of bodies put in the river in accordance with hindi practices

wade cought one example weighing > 160lb

and he believes far larger specimines - exist in the same waters

[edit on 21-10-2008 by ignorant_ape]

Hard to believe that something that size could be responsible for eating 3 humans. Perhaps theres lots of them. First time I've heard of cat fish having an interest in human flesh

Even the biggest catfish I ever seen on the net wouldn't be able to do that.

I would blame crocodiles sooner....

I'll believe it when I see it. Something that big should have been spotted by someone who lived to tell about it. If it were big enough to eat a human, it would crush every record for fresh water fish.

Yes ive been hearing alot about this their is a program on t.v. about it now i think on british television i think channel 4 or 5 not too sure and i think meone said that they have found flesheating catfish which is about 6 foot long which i assume is very capable of capturing and eating 3 humans

I just watched the end of a National geographic prog an hour ago.
The guy had to jump in the river with his rod after hooking a 6FT - 160 something pound catfish .
It had teeth like a shark ,yowch.
Easy to picture it pulling a smaller adult down.

I usually have to stop at ASDA on the way back from my fishing trips to get a pack of frozen fish fingers.

EDIT.. Honest.. 6ft.. I didn't see you guys replying.There was no way he could pull it in alone.

[edit on 21-10-2008 by AGENT_T]

Didnt the History Channel also have this on Monster Quest last year, about these big fish. They never found any that big.

Don't assume it is just that one catfish eating people. I bet it's a school of them that developed the taste...

Catfish don't have teeth, they got rasps.

A human would give to many trouble, they just drown or were eaten by crocs.

reply to post by Grey Magic


Yeah I thought so to.
But the guy opened the jaw of this 6ft-er and it had 1inch teeth in the blighter.



I don't think this was the one,but the guy looks the same.

reply to post by Grey Magic


Goonch Catfish do have teeth, they don't have raspers.

reply to post by AGENT_T


I am pretty sure that is a Mekong giant catfish. Still as far as I know the beefiest and one of the most endangered Cat fishes around. Wels are usually the longest. Little as really been done on the Goonch until fairly recently as they were seen as not being capable of growing to significant proportions.

to reply to the points raised :

this is occuring in the INDIAN river kali - a trubutary of the ganges - high in the hymalayas , there are NO crocodiles or aligators there

gooch catfish do have teeth

as AGENT-T has posted large specimines have been caught - and larger are theoretically possible

if such a large fish DECIDES to attempt to take a human victim - it is quite capable of drowning them - and while one individual could not consume a full corpse - there are other fish in the river that would scavage up all the smaller bits - once the body was rent

reply to post by Marshall Ormus


That's the one. "Goonch"
Jeremy Wade is the guy too. biologist and fisherman.

I have a pic of the teeth but the site's bandwidth is exceeded. will try to post when available.

Apparently attracted to riverside funerals and developed a taste for human flesh..Reports of it taking young boys..

Maybe it's called Michael.. Who said that??

Originally posted by AGENT_T
I just watched the end of a National geographic prog an hour ago.
The guy had to jump in the river with his rod after hooking a 6FT - 160 something pound catfish

.
It had teeth like a shark ,yowch.
Easy to picture it pulling a smaller adult down.

I usually have to stop at ASDA on the way back from my fishing trips to get a pack of frozen fish fingers.

EDIT.. Honest.. 6ft.. I didn't see you guys replying.There was no way he could pull it in alone.

[edit on 21-10-2008 by AGENT_T]

Asda sell 6ft fish fingers ? Christ along with their Jaws bread and Tigerloaf makes me wonder about GM food.

Soylent Green at isle 15

It could be giant freshwater mussels and clams. They might sit there with their shells open and a person sticks a body part in and SLAM, they are trapped and easy pickings for whatever eats meat down there.

reply to post by AGENT_T


Dear loving god, that looks as though it could eat little indian people allright ! Could possibly handle a fat bastard like me by the look of it.

Dude is that normal ? or has it been hanging out with Homer ?

this is real however that type can only get up to 4 feet but i think it was a type entirely different

As a fisherman I have to confess to a slightly macabre fascination with such stories.

There really are some big fishies out there:



(bigger one is a 228lbs 6oz wells catfish [how did they weigh it?] - a world record)
Source: ecopathic.blogspot.com...



(140lbs wells catfish)
Source: outdoorswithothmarvohringer.blogspot.com...


I've heard tales of small children disappearing without a trace after being sucked under by catfish (wells) in Eastern Europe. The fisherman who told me about this swore these were real occurrences that had been reported in their national press.

These beasts really do have some strange predilections:

Man-sized German catfish chokes on football

A gigantic catfish in Germany's Main River met its end this week when it suffocated after trying to eat a football, water police reported.

The 2-metre catfish was discovered floating in a sluice in Goßmannsdorf near Würzburg in the German state of Bavaria on Monday. The man-sized fish had a blue and white football jammed in its massive mouth.

"In 30 years with the water police I have never seen such a thing," officer Reiner Jünger told German news agency DDP, adding that the fish probably mistook the ball for prey.

"Whether the fish allowed himself to get caught up in the recent excitement over the Euro 2008 and went for the ball can't be ascertained," Bavarian police said in a statement on Monday.

Catfish are among the largest freshwater predatory fish. Jünger said the fish generally await their prey on the river floor, but sometimes pop up to snag birds from the surface.

Source: www.thelocal.de...


'Course if you want to catch a really big fish, you use a giant catfish steak for bait:



(468lb white sturgeon)

Source: www.sturgeonfishing.com...

There are others you might not want to be swimming around with too:



(485lbs Thailand freshwater ray)
Source: www.usatoday.com...

...American biologist Zeb Hogan... is on a worldwide quest for the largest freshwater fish.

Hogan, 34, has heard the stories of Cambodian fishermen catching rays that weighed over 1,100 pounds with wingspans of 14 feet. But so far, they are just stories. If he can confirm them, he could eclipse the world record now held by the Mekong giant catfish...

[edit on 4/11/08 by pause4thought]

IMO no fish could eat a human in this circonstances and no traces of cloths showing up !
For me it myst be some type of huge snake like a anaconda or something similar.
Anacondas literaly kidnap indian childrens and other low stature humans in the river amazon on Brasil, Fast as a lightning, and nobody sees them again...
A snake for sure...!