Heavily-shared story about 700-pound catfish was written as an April Fools’ joke

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A screenshot taken on February 7, 2020

The article, shared on Facebook here and here by users who seem to believe its claim, features an image that appears to show a massive fish with “a mouth as wide as a dumpster.” 

The article claims the catfish was hauled in with the help of the US Coast Guard and a crane, and had apparently eaten the town of Alton’s tallest recorded person.

But RiverBender.com, the local news site that published the piece, said it was a joke dating to 2016 that resurfaces every year, an example of the long lifespan of an internet hoax.

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A screenshot taken February 7, 2020 shows social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle’s analysis of the article about the giant catfish

Although allegedly a Mekong giant catfish, which can grow to be about 700 pounds, the fish in the photo is actually a flathead catfish, which only reaches about 120 pounds, said Dr Jay Stauffer, an ichthyologist at Pennsylvania State University.

Mekong giant catfish are endangered and are native to southeast Asia.

The story makes the rounds every year, said Mike Hall, who has worked at RiverBender.com for 13 years. “Every April Fools’ Day, we do a satire story. That particular one kind of blew up.”

Although some readers recognized that the article’s claim was fake, comments on Facebook indicated that other users believed it was real.

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A screenshot of comments on a Facebook post taken on February 7, 2020

Illinois records indicate the largest reported catfish in the state was a 124-pound Blue Catfish caught in the Mississippi River in 2005.​