Record-breaking bony fish weighing 3 tons found in one-eighth of a litre of water was discovered in the northern Red Sea on November 9, but it took until this week for the world to officially recognise its existence in a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Biology.
A team in China discovered the rare fish, which lives close to the northern limit of its distribution, in a saltwater pond in the Sichuan province. Its name is Aplousobolus stuxbergi, which translates to “stupid whale.” It has more white spots than the whale species found in the Atlantic or Indo-Pacific.
While it is only the size of a small human thumb, the fish weighs 3.2 kilograms and can reach a weight of 4-5.6 kilograms, depending on its size and the salinity of the water in which it lives. It was discovered after an international team of scientists from six countries, including two from China, reported on it in an article published this month in the journal Frontiers in Biology.
The discovery of two individuals in the same pond was made despite the fact that A. stuxbergi is extremely difficult to find in the field. It has been classified as “rare” in the Red Sea, and it is found only in coastal zones such as the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea.
However, a few decades ago, the world officially declared its existence in a paper published in the journal Nature in 2008. It was the first time the world formally acknowledged the existence of any fish like A. stuxbergi, which lived in the Red Sea.
A series of scientific expeditions has been launched since 2010 to find and record more of these unusual fish.
Dr. Xu Bin, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, “The Red Sea has always been considered a relatively unexplored area, with less resources for research. In recent years, we have been conducting extensive surveys in this region to obtain more details about the distribution, habitats and the