You may have missed this, but last summer, it was big news in Malaysia. Villagers who live along Kenyir lake reported that that its waters seemed to be inhabited by an immense predatory fish with a penchant for leaping high out of the water. Locals called it kan naga, after a mythical dragon, while the Star, an English-language Malaysian newspaper, dubbed it the “Kenyir Monster.” One villager reportedly claimed that the creature was the size of a baby elephant, but others estimated its length at between 10 and 13 feet. There was even feverish speculation that the fish somehow had caused the June 2009 drowning deaths of two men–a local park supervisor who mysteriously fell out of his boat, and an emergency rescue worker who went into the water after him. Could they possibly have encountered the giant fish? And where had the giant suddenly come from? If you think that the 12,000-year-old Loch Ness is too new to harbor a prehistoric monster, then Kenyir, a manmade body of water that is just 25 years old, is an even more unlikely lair for some ancient throwback.
A Malaysian marine biologist, Mohd Fadzil Suhaimi Ramli, subsequently came up with a more plausible theory. The Kenyir Monster seemed to fit the description of Arapaima gigas, a predatory fish native to the Amazon basin in South America. Also known as the giant Arapaima, the paiche and the pirarucu, A. gigas, which has a wide, scaly gray body and a tapered head is one of the biggest, feistiest freshwater fish around. A 2003 reference book, Check List of the Freshwater Fishes of South and Central America, says that longest documented specimen was nearly 13 feet in length, and that there have been unverified reports of up to 15 feet. As the National Geographic profile of the fish notes:
That would explain the surface sightings. Yes, and it’s also an impressive leaper. But how did it get roughly 10,000 miles from its home in the Amazon to a lake in Malaysia?
One possible explanation: Somebody had obtained the fish from South American and, for reasons unknown, had put it in the Malaysian lake. The Star reported a bizarre secondhand anecdote:
That actually isn’t as strange of a scenario as it might seem. After all, according to this Straits Times article, 120 of the 382 species of freshwater fish found in Malaysia are non-indigenous species that started out as escaped farm fish or pets:
Peacock bass are one thing, but the idea that an invasive Amazonian eating machine the size of a small boat—and possibly even more than one of the creatures–was on the loose in Kenyir lake, presumably gobbling up local species, gave Malaysian fisheries officials cause for alarm. And the possibility—however remote—that the fish had caused two fatalities was not something they could afford to ignore, either, since the government has been trying to develop the lake as a tourism attraction. In July, according to this press release from the official Malaysian government news agency, fisheries officials offered a reward of 10,000 ringgits—about $3,100—for anyone who could capture the monster.
According to a subsequent Star article, the bounty attracted scores of sport fishermen from as far away as Europe—probably not so much because of the money but the novelty, since A. gigas has been overfished to the brink of extinction in the Amazon, and big specimens are seldom seen anymore there. (One reason the fish is a prized catch, according to its National Geographic profile: The arapaima has an unusual “bony” tongue fitted with a set of teeth, which some indigenous people use as a scraping tool.)
Apparently, however, the sport fishermen all came away empty-handed, because the April 15 deadline came and went without any announcement of a capture. And there haven’t been any sightings of the Kenyir Monster reported, either by the Malaysian news media or by the Malaysian Forest Explorers blog, which tracks local nature happenings. So what happened to the giant fish? Is it still alive? If there are any Malaysian readers who know anything about it, please contact us. Inquiring minds want to know.
Btw, if you’re interested in huge freshwater fish, National Geographic grantee explorer Zeb Hogan, an aquatic zoologist, is leading the Megafishes Project, which aims to identify, document and help protect the world’s largest freshwater fishes, ranging from the Mekong giant catfish to the giant freshwater stingray. We’ll be writing more about this effort in the future.