Faustino Talavera and other river workers exhibiting the specimen (Potamotrygonidae family) in the capital’s Plaza de los Pescadores, explained that this is the first time they have caught a specimen of this size, since the normal weight of individuals of this species is 100 kilograms and between 60 and 70 centimeters, the newspaper ABC Color publishes.
The leader of the capture, aged 25 in the Paraná (the canal that flows south, east, and southwest through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina), explained that it took him six people, three boats, and more than an hour to get out of the water come and bring the ray to the nearby port of Ayolas.
The freshwater ray, family of sharks, also known as the river ray, is a tropical cartilaginous fish with a flattened body and an omnivorous diet (crustaceans and other invertebrates and small fish) that lives in all South American countries.
The fish is round or diamond-shaped in shape and has a tail or whip with one (males) or two (females) dorsal spines connected to a venom gland whose venom introduced into the human body through a bite causes severe muscle spasms, Causes paralysis and pain and irritation and even death depending on where it sinks its stinger.
According to media reports, the world record weight for a freshwater stingray is 300 kilograms, recorded in June in Cambodia’s northern Mekong and also believed to be the largest freshwater specimen caught to date.
The four-meter-long animal was caught and safely returned to the waters by Moul Thun, 42, on the remote island of Kaoh Preah.
“It’s proof that specimens of these endangered aquatic animals still exist,” said Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Nevada at Reno and a National Geographic Explorer with 20 years of experience studying these species.
mem/apb