DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
The world’s biggest freshwater fish, a giant stingray, that weighs 300 kilograms is pictured with International scientists, Cambodian fisheries officials and villagers at Koh Preah island in the Mekong River south of Stung Treng province, Cambodia, on 14th June. Picture taken with a drone. PICTURE: Chhut Chheana/Wonder of Mekong/Handout via Reuters.
• Cambodian villagers on the Mekong River have caught what researchers say is the world’s biggest freshwater fish ever recorded, a stingray that weighed in at 300 kilograms and took around a dozen men to haul to shore. Christened Boramy – meaning “full moon” in the Khmer language – because of her bulbous shape, the four-metre long female was released back into the river after being electronically tagged to allow scientists to monitor her movement and behaviour. “This is very exciting news because it was the world’s largest fish,” said biologist Zeb Hogan, ex-host of the Monster Fish show on the National Geographic Channel and now part of a conservation project on the river. “It is also exciting news because it means that this stretch of the Mekong is still healthy…It is a sign of hope that these huge fish still live [here].” Boramy, netted last week off Koh Preah, an island along the northern Cambodian stretch of the river, took the record from a 293 kilogram giant catfish that was caught upstream in northern Thailand in 2005. – KWANG JIRAPORN KUHAKAN/Reuters
• A restaurant KFC founder “Colonel” Harland Sanders created for his wife Claudia has gone on the market in Kentucky. The Claudia Sanders Dinner House in the town of Shelbyville opened in 1959 and, as well as a restaurant, served as the first KFC headquarters. It’s being sold with a residence, Blackwood Hall, which the Sanders lived in more than 25 years as well as memorabilia from Sanders, including Sanders’ original Kentucky Colonel certificate, a birthday letter from President Nixon to Sanders, and Sanders’ monogrammed Bible, according to the listing. There’s no “original recipe”, with its 11 herbs and spices, however. Listing agent Morgan Hancock, of Six Degrees Real Estate, told Kentucky.com, that potential buyers will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and show proof of at least $US5 million cash on hand.
• A Spanish village on Sunday celebrated one of the world’s more unusual festivals on Sunday – the ‘El Salto del Colacho’, also known internationally as the ‘Baby-Jumping Festival’. The festival reportedly features men dressed in red and yellow costumes representing the devil- El Colacho – running through the village of Castrillo de Murcia and causing mayhem with whips and castanets. It culminated with the baby-jumping event – ‘El Salto del Colacho’ or ‘The Flight of the Colacho’ – on Sunday in which the men jump over groups of babies, who were born that year, laying on mattresses in the streets. The babies are then sprinkled with rose petals before being returned to their parents. Locals say there are no records of babies having ever been hurt during the event.
