The fish in the reservoir disappeared, and the farmers cried without tears. After the villagers drained the water, they discovered that the murderer turned out to be a "water tiger"! What on earth is this "water tiger" that can wipe out so many fish?

In 2018, in a certain place in Xiangtan, Hunan A strange thing happened in a small reservoir. This reservoir was contracted by a local resident named Hu. This old man Hu would put tens of thousands of fish fry into the reservoir every year, while raising fish and opening it to anglers.

Brother Hu’s calculation is very good. One fishing spot charges 300 yuan a day, and the big fish in it can be taken away after being caught. If the fishing friends put the caught fish back into the pond, then Brother Hu will refund 250 yuan. This kind of fish pond is also called a "black pit" by fishermen. The owner of the pit can use the bait provided by the fishermen to raise fish. At the same time, he can also collect fishing fees and sell the fish for money when they grow up.

Brother Hu used to just sit and count money, but recently more and more old fishing friends have reported that there seem to be fewer and fewer fish in this reservoir, and even the rainy days are sultry. There is no weather to see fish coming up to spit out water.

Brother Hu thought they were He was complaining that he couldn't catch any fish, so he didn't pay attention. The reason is very simple. The fish in the "black pit" have been caught and put down many times. As time goes by, the fish in it will become very shrewd and tricky when eating bait. This is normal.

At the end of the year, when Brother Hu was about to collect fish, he realized that something was very wrong. In previous years, there were a lot of heavy fish when pulling the net, but now there are not even small fish in the reservoir. Where have all these fish gone? This puzzles Brother Hu. In addition to collecting money every day, he keeps an eye on the background monitoring of the reservoir. The biggest fear in doing this kind of business is that others will poison the reservoir, but Brother Hu has not been able to do this for more than a year. Nothing unusual was found, and no fish carcasses floated on the water. It was obvious that no one had poisoned the fish. Then this thing is very strange. Could it be that the fish can grow wings and fly away?

Brother Hu hired some local villagersThe villagers pulled the net like a carpet, and there were only a few big fish in the net. The villagers all knew that Brother Hu had suffered a heavy loss. After pulling the net several times, the villagers caught a huge strange fish. This strange fish was more than one meter long. After being weighed, it weighed more than 90 kilograms! A local man in his 80s who knows the goods recognized it at a glance: "This is a water tiger!"

The scientific name of the water tiger is the tadpole fish, also known as the sole fish. This fish is extremely ferocious in nature. It is distributed in rivers and lakes. The catfish has a very slender body but a big mouth. It mainly feeds on other fish, especially the four traditional major fishes. The catfish loves these fish the most.

When the catfish is young, it eats fish eggs, shrimps and rice as its staple food. It grows very fast. It only takes more than a year from fry to adult. In more than a year, the catfish can grow to 50 centimeters. . When the catfish grows to this size, other fish in the pond will suffer. As long as the catfish can swallow it, it is its food.

The catfish reaches sexual maturity at the age of 4, and by this time it is already a 30-pound big fish! If there are catfish in a fish pond, no matter how many fry are put in, it will not help. The most terrifying thing is that as the catfish grows bigger and bigger, the big fish that it cannot eat will gradually become its snacks. The growth rate of the four major domestic fishes is far less than that of the catfish. The catfish caught in Brother Hu's fish pond can swallow a herring weighing five kilograms in one go! If there is a catfish in a fish pond, then all the fish in the fish pond will be eaten.

Although the catfish is ferocious, it will not make other fish extinct in natural waters because it is a semi-migratory fish and has special requirements for the natural environment. From March to April every year, adult catfish will look for places with clear water and fast currents to lay eggs, which is completely opposite to other fish. When spawning, most freshwater fish find a secluded place with slow water flow and aquatic plants, because this can prevent the eggs from hitting the gravel on the river bed when being impacted by the current, and can increase the hatching rate of the fish eggs.

But the catfish is very stubborn , you have to go against the current. Only one of tens of thousands of eggs can grow to adulthood. Fortunately, the number of eggs laid by catfish is large each time. A one-meter-long catfish lays more than 500,000 eggs. These eggs drift with the current and hatch into small fish when the water temperature is suitable. Many small catfish will be eaten by larger catfish of the same kind. It is rare for catfish to survive and grow to several dozen kilograms.

Judging from the habits of catfish, they rarely appear in reservoirs. The Hu Laoge reservoir is not large, only more than 100 acres, and the water source comes from mountain streams. Under natural conditions, catfish do not will come here. Therefore, this catfish must have been put into the reservoir artificially, and Brother Hu was obviously deceived. He has been contracting this reservoir for more than ten years. As his business gets better and better, it is inevitable that some people will be jealous. The only thing Mr. Hu can do now is to drain the reservoir, because no one knows if there are still catfish in it. If there are, no matter how much fry he puts in, it won't work.

However, this 90-pound catfish may be able to make up for some losses. The meat of the catfish is firm and delicious, and is very popular among diners. The catfish meat has the effect of warming the stomach and is also delicious. traditional Chinese medicine. Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer catfish weighing tens of kilograms in our country's rivers. An individual of this size can be sold for more than 2,000 yuan.

Because of the ferocious nature of catfish, the U.S. government once wanted to introduce this fish to prevent and control the increasing proliferation of Asian carp in the Great Lakes, but this plan was urgently halted by biologists. After the introduction of catfish, other fish in the Great Lakes will also be eaten. This is really an unwise strategy to drive away tigers and devour wolves.