This creature is commonly regarded as the “demon fish” and boasts teeth longer than steak knives.
Everyone’s heard of piranhas due to their insatiable hunger and shoaling behavior. Can you imagine falling into a river full of starved piranhas? They’d clean your flesh to the bone in minutes. Now, imagine a piranha that’s five times bigger with teeth longer than steak knives. That’s the goliath tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath), also known as mbenga or “the demon fish”.
This fish definitely lives up to its name.
Goliath tigerfish are a rather scary-looking fish that prowl the waters of the Congo River in Africa. They are members of the family Hydrocynus, which includes four other species of tigerfish.
While all five species of tigerfish have toothy jaws and a fearsome appetite (with some tigerfish known to capture birds in flight), the goliath tigerfish is the largest of them all.
Growing to nearly five feet in length and weighing up to 34 pounds, the goliath tigerfish definitely deserves the “Goliath” title. Thankfully, they primarily eat fish and not human children, although they have been known to attack people.
In the dark, murky waters of the Congo, tigerfish can’t see very well, so the difference between a delicious fish and a human hand is not so stark. With that in mind, you probably don’t want to go skinny-dipping in the Congo River…
