Giant stingray caught in Thailand’s Mae Klong River may be world’s largest freshwater fish

IT WEIGHS a whopping 360 kilograms and is the size of a car. This massive stingray, says the team that caught it, could be the largest freshwater fish on record.

A GIANT car-sized stingray discovered by researchers in Thailand may be the largest freshwater fish ever documented.

Nicknamed the “big one”, the ray — which weighed around 360 kilograms — was caught and released in the Mae Klong River, about an hour outside Bangkok, National Geographic reports.

One of the researchers, Nantarika Chansue, a veterinarian and professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said the ray measured 4.3 metres long.

UP CLOSE: Raymond the stingray emerges from the water

An ultrasound performed on the ray while it was held in a cage in the river, revealing that the animal was pregnant with two foetal rays.

Zeb Hogan, a professor of biology at the University of Nevada, told National Geographic the

the previous size record for this species was an estimated 314 kilograms.

“Certainly (this) was a huge fish, even compared to other giant freshwater stingrays, and definitely ranks among the largest freshwater fish in the world,” he said.

The catch was filmed for an upcoming episode of the US television show Ocean Mysteries, hosted by Jeff Corwin.