Vampire Fish
Hogan holds a vampire fish that was caught below Corona Falls in Guyana, in South America. Also called payara, the Amazon Basin predators feed on other fish, especially piranhas, which they impale on their long fangs. (See more scary fish.)
Swimming with the World’s Biggest Fish
See explorer Zeb Hogan as he races to study these massive fish before they disappear forever.
Over the past few decades, National Geographic Explorer and biologist Zeb Hogan has travelled far and wide in search of the world’s biggest fish. The search has focused on rivers that are both understudied and at high risk of ecological damage from dams, overfishing, mines, and other manmade threats.
"The race to study and save these megafish has never been more urgent," says Hogan. More than 70 percent of the world's freshwater megafish are at risk of extinction, he notes. The Chinese paddlefish may already be gone.
