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Freshwater animals

Giant pangasius

Amazing fact

The giant pangasius has no scales and has whiskers beside its large mouth.

Zoo Praha
Giant pangasius in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The giant pangasius has no scales and has whiskers beside its large mouth.

SourceZoo Praha — Pangas vláknoploutvý

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THE REAL WORLD

The real Giant pangasius

Scientific name
Pangasius sanitwongsei
Japanese name
パールム
Group
Freshwater animals
Order
Siluriformes
Family
Pangasiidae
Genus
Pangasius
Facts about the real animal.
01

A member of the shark catfish family (Pangasiidae), it grows very large.

鳥羽水族館 — パールム
02

It lives in the Chao Phraya and Mekong river systems.

鳥羽水族館 — パールム
03

As it grows, its body turns darker and its dorsal fin grows very long.

鳥羽水族館 — パールム

How the Giant pangasius lives

The young grow in large tributaries. It is a fish that lives in the main channels of rivers. It feeds mainly on other fish.

สำนักงานนโยบายและแผนทรัพยากรธรรมชาติและสิ่งแวดล้อม

Basic data

Range
Chao Phraya and Mekong river systems
鳥羽水族館

Where the Giant pangasius has been recorded

World map with dots where the Giant pangasius has been recorded
Each dot marks a place with observations or specimens shared on GBIF. Some records are of animals that strayed or were brought by people, so the dots are not always where the animal lives.

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesAsiaRivers and wetlands

Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.

Names around the world

日本語
パールム
简体中文
长丝巨鲶
繁體中文
長絲巨鯰
한국어
징기스칸
Português (Brasil)
Pangasius-gigante
Bahasa Indonesia
Ikan genghis khan
Tiếng Việt
Cá vồ cờ

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.

The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.

The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.

This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.

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