Fish Legends.

[Chicxulub]

The bit about the 400lb blue catfish. The information about fisheries management and Rafanesque-Shmaltz's biography are easy enough to find. (Thanks for getting me to look him up, he's really interesting.)

I said 250-300.

I got those numbers from the Planet Catfish article on blue cats. Most of Rafinesque's works are in French, which I cannot read. PCF is compiled by better minds than me, namely Julian Dignall and Dr. Heok Hee Ng. If they report it, I tend to believe it.

The exact text:

This is North America's largest native fish. Recent sports fishing records show this fish weighing well over 100 pounds, with a world record as of June 2011 of 143 pounds and 57 inches in length. In recent times, the fish is seriously overfished, records from before the year 1900 range from 200 to 300 pounds. Rafinesque, a noted naturalist, claimed to have seen a specimen at 250 pounds.

Link:

https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=261

 

[ItsFishMoney]

If a pet aro dies, it means someone in the family was supposed to die, and the arowana died in his/her place.

Is this is a true superstition, I came down Christmas morning a few days ago to mine dead on the floor so I hope he didn’t die In vain!

 

[J. H.]

Some more anecdotal evidence about goldfish surviving being frozen:

Goldfish can be frozen into blocks of ice and survive. MrsE88 had one that survived partially being frozen, and I know a misguided soul who put his black moor in the freezer to try this out and his poor goldie did not survive . I rate this 50% true.

Hello; Many years ago (late 1950's) a small pond froze solid. It had some goldfish frozen in the ice. The owner let me take a chunk of ice with a gold fish in it. I put it in a bucket of water and let it thaw out. The goldfish was alive. Not sure about Koi.

That is interesting. I’ve had fish partially frozen be ok, but never frozen solid.

Last page of this pdf from the British science magazine "New Scientist", which, after some quick googling, seems to be a legit source has an interesting bit on goldfish metabolism that may explain why they can handle cold and low oxygen, but not be frozen in ice.
http://www.go2altitude.com/data/NewScientist.pdf

"GOLDFISH
In its natural habitat can spend winter months sealed, with no oxygen under pond ice.
It depresses its metabolism by 90 per cent, swimming slowly, like a runner, it uses
glucose as an anaerobic energy source. Unlike a runner it gets rid of the toxic waste
lactic acid by converting it to alcohol and peeing it away. Low oxygen tolerance made
goldfish the world's first aquarium fish a thousand years ago."

 

[skjl47]

from the British science magazine "New Scientist", which, after some quick googling, seems to be a legit source has an interesting bit on goldfish metabolism that may explain why they can handle cold and low oxygen, but not be frozen in ice.

hello; back when I found a goldfish frozen in ice I was about 12 years old and did not know any better. The fish thawed out and started swimming. Had I read the article then I guess the goldfish would not have survived. My bad.

 

[J. H.]

hello; back when I found a goldfish frozen in ice I was about 12 years old and did not know any better. The fish thawed out and started swimming. Had I read the article then I guess the goldfish would not have survived. My bad.

Not my point. I believe you saw what you saw as much as believe a story anyone would tell me. I have drawn no conclusions here. I am simply gathering info about a topic I find interesting and elusive.

 

[skjl47]

Not my point. I believe you saw what you saw as much as believe a story anyone would tell me. I have drawn no conclusions here. I am simply gathering info about a topic I find interesting and elusive.

Hello; Fair enough. Sorta sounds like the story that according to physics a bumblebee cannot fly. Me and a buddy were out and stopped by the yard of Dr. Flowers. He had a shallow outdoor pond. It had frozen. We saw a few goldfish in the ice. Dr. flowers came out to see what we were doing, so we showed him the goldfish in the ice. I seem to recall he let us break the ice and one chunk had a goldfish in it. He let me have the fish so I carried it home encased in the ice. For some reason I thought it was important to let it thaw slowly so I put in in a bucket of cold water and left it on my porch outside. After some time it had thawed out and was alive in the bucket. I do not recall what I did with it after but likely I put in one of my tanks.