RIVER MONSTER DISCOVERED IN THE CALOOSAHATCHEE RIVER IDENTIFIED

The Amazonian river monster, named the Arapaima, is claimed to grow up to 10 feet long and weigh about 200 pounds.

You may think about the Discovery Channel show River Monsters when you hear about this monster fish.

Recently, a woman who took a walk through Cape Coral's Jaycee Park came across an enormous dead fish which puzzled her. At first, she noticed the dead fish floating in the water along the Caloosahatchee River, but she did not recognise the species. It was only after she posted a photo of it to Facebook that someone identified it. 

Leah Getts, from Cape Coral, who spotted the fish, said; "It was bigger than my 7-year-old. I thought that is nothing I've ever seen before. It was kind of white with a pinkish tail. It had a huge kind of open bass looking kind of mouth. It didn't look like anything I had heard of or seen before."

She discovered that the floating carcass still had a hook in its mouth. Leah added that, after posting the photo, "They were saying it was an Arapaima, and I looked at pictures and it was dead on."

After figuring out what species the fish is, more questions started rising. How a five-and-a-half-foot long amazon river predator ended up in the Caloosahatchee River.

An Ecologist for the Calusa Waterkeeper, John Cassani, worries that the dead fish could mean others are in the area. He added that "The primary concern with arapaima is that they would become established and reproduce naturally." According to Cassani, South Florida's climate is warming, and the zones in which arapaima can live continues to creep north. 

This could potentially open the door for an aggressive, dangerous fish lurking on Florida's freshwater ecosystems. "Obviously a big aggressive predatory fish is popular amongst anglers. But the risk to the ecosystem far outweighs the recreational value of the species."