River Monsters (45 page)

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Authors: Jeremy Wade

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17.
BREATH-HOLD DIVING IN UNDERWATER CAVES
in a cold, cloudy Himalayan river with trailing poachers’ lines was not my idea of fun. But we did, eventually, get the
first-ever footage of goonch in their natural habitat.

18.
THIS
CUIU-CUIU
OR ‘RIPSAW CATFISH’
was a rare catch. But this armour didn’t stop a piranha from taking a mouthful out of its back on the way to
the boat.

19.
THE BUSINESS END OF A PIRAIBA
, one of two catfish species that Amazon fishermen say have swallowed people whole.

20.
WITH A CHAINSAW-LIKE SNOUT
on a shark's body, sawfish require careful handling.

21.
LIKE AN ALLIGATOR WITH FINS
. But is the much-maligned alligator gar as dangerous as it looks? And how reliable are the reports of fourteen-footers?

22.
GIANT GROUPERS
have been known to attack divers by grabbing arms, legs, and even once, a man’s head. But this 250-pounder from a river surprised even local
fishery experts.

23.
BLEARY-EYED DAYBREAK ON THE BRISBANE RIVER
. Not such a good time for darkness-loving bull sharks, but at least you can tell if that’s an oil tanker you just
hooked.

24.
AT NINE FEET, EIGHT INCHES
long and weighing five hundred pounds, this is one of the biggest male bull sharks (note the ‘clasper’) ever seen anywhere. What
was it doing in a river?

25.
A BULL SHARK
made short work of this leg-sized kob in South Africa’s Breede River. They also check out people – but why aren’t the Breede sharks
man-eaters?

26.
THIS FISH HAS SMALL TEETH
and very little muscle, but touch it and you could die. Hence the protective clothing.

27.
GET STABBED BY THIS SPINE
, with its coating of toxic slime, and the pain is like holding your foot in a fire. Death can follow from gangrene or blood loss.

28.
CAUGHT WITH A LINE BUT NO HOOK
, the longfin eel is an unlikely man-eater – until you piece together its grisly
modus operandi
.

29.
THE TWO THOUSAND–MILE RIO PURUS
was my second home for nearly ten years. On its way to join the Amazon, the Purus is a confusion of bends and hidden backwater
lakes. Annual floods raise the water level by up to fifty feet.

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