Photo: Giant River Stingrays Found Near Thai City
Stefan Lovgren in Chachoengsao, Thailand
for National Geographic News
April 29, 2008
This is the seventh story in a continuing series on the Megafishes Project. Join National Geographic News on the trail with project leader Zeb Hogan as he tracks down the world's largest freshwater fishes.
When anglers called that March afternoon to say they had caught a giant freshwater stingray near this bustling Thai city, biologist Zeb Hogan couldn't believe it.
He had just spent a week in the remote Mekong River in northern Cambodia, searching for the ray—which might be the world's largest freshwater fish species—to no avail.
Hogan, of the University of Nevada in Reno, is documenting the rays as part of the Megafishes Project, an effort to document Earth's 20 or so freshwater giants.
Hogan is also a National Geographic Society Emerging Explorer. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)
Many of these behemoths, including the giant stingray, have declined in recent years. The ray, listed as "vulnerable" on the 2007 World Conservation Union Red List of species, has been overfished in its Mekong River habitat, Hogan said.
But when Hogan arrived at the river that afternoon, he found that not only had the anglers reeled in a 14-foot-long (4.3-meter-long) ray, but that the creature had also just given birth to a dinner plate-size baby. (See photos of the new mother and baby.)
The newborn clung to the rough skin on the back of its mother, which was being held at the riverbank by nine handlers.
"Amazing," Hogan said. "A stingray this size giving birth before our eyes."
Recreational fisher Rick Humphreys holds a giant freshwater stingray baby less than an hour old in Thailand on March 31, 2008.
The anglers who reeled in the baby's mother were taken by surprise when the giant creature suddenly gave birth as it was being held near the banks of the Bang Pakong River.
The baby measured 48 inches (122 centimeters) from its snout to the tip of its tail.
The event may be the first time that anyone has witnessed a live birth of a giant freshwater stingray in the wild, Humphreys said.
Biologist Zeb Hogan studied the stingray as part of a research effort to document the world's remaining freshwater giants.
Additional photos from NGS gallery.
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