Polish, you should read my first post again (please do it). I wrote there from where the nearly always repeated claim of the 4m+ arapaimas come, from ONE SINGLE SECOND HAND claim from the first half of the 18th century. But this claim, which was probably even based on a translation error, found its way in literature, and that´s the reason why you can find it so often. There are many similar cases, for example the great white shark, for which you can find in many old books a maximum length of 11-12m (again based on a single unauthenticated record).
Furthermore I showed by simple caculations, that the stated dates are in no possible relation, as a hypothetical 4m+ arapaima would be much much heavier than only 200kg.
A weight of 200kg seems not impossible for an arapaima, but not 4m as length. That´s the reason why I named this thread "The TRUE size of arapaima gigas". If you read or hear about 4,5m or even 5m, you will probably think this is a normal length, but this is miles away from being true. Same thing with the wels catfish. A lot of people think they grow usually up to 5m, what´s again just a result of a handfull of very old big-fish-stories which were never proven but found their way in literature.
Today you won´t hardly ever find 11 or 12m as maximum length for the great white shark in a good book, so why is it so hard to accept that there is a very similar situation in Arapaima gigas?
Just look at the photos you posted. They are all very big specimens, but none is just close to at least 3m. The 2,65m specimen is more or less official world record. Don´t you think this is not a bit strange? If this species could easily reach lengths of around 4m, why is the official record so much smaller? Why could an expert which studied thousands of them in their original habitat not find at least one of more than 2,40m?
I have looked for photos of the arapaimas in the Dallas aquarium. They are big by no means, but surely not as big as claimed. A lot of aquariums around the world keep arapaimas, and they often grow to a length of more than 2m. But hardly ever over 2,5m. So why should they grow there so much bigger?
Furthermore I showed by simple caculations, that the stated dates are in no possible relation, as a hypothetical 4m+ arapaima would be much much heavier than only 200kg.
A weight of 200kg seems not impossible for an arapaima, but not 4m as length. That´s the reason why I named this thread "The TRUE size of arapaima gigas". If you read or hear about 4,5m or even 5m, you will probably think this is a normal length, but this is miles away from being true. Same thing with the wels catfish. A lot of people think they grow usually up to 5m, what´s again just a result of a handfull of very old big-fish-stories which were never proven but found their way in literature.
Today you won´t hardly ever find 11 or 12m as maximum length for the great white shark in a good book, so why is it so hard to accept that there is a very similar situation in Arapaima gigas?
Just look at the photos you posted. They are all very big specimens, but none is just close to at least 3m. The 2,65m specimen is more or less official world record. Don´t you think this is not a bit strange? If this species could easily reach lengths of around 4m, why is the official record so much smaller? Why could an expert which studied thousands of them in their original habitat not find at least one of more than 2,40m?
I have looked for photos of the arapaimas in the Dallas aquarium. They are big by no means, but surely not as big as claimed. A lot of aquariums around the world keep arapaimas, and they often grow to a length of more than 2m. But hardly ever over 2,5m. So why should they grow there so much bigger?
