Fishermen Discover a Fish as Big as a Chevy Suburban

A record-breaking fish was recently caught in Idaho. Riley Farden’s new state record was made on the Snake River; Idaho Fish and Game has confirmed the catch. The bow fisherman nabbed a 67.65-pound grass carp, beating the previous archery record by about 28 pounds! The massive fish was 49 inches long and 32.75 inches wide.

Fish are one of the species in the world with the most diversity. These aquatic animals come in different shapes, colors, and skeletal compositions. Some are endemic to freshwater habitats, and others to saltwater dwellers. Fish species can be as tiny as several milligrams and can be as massive as 40,000 pounds.

According to news reports, a fisherman in the Azores archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean discovered a fish the size of a Chevy Suburban. Though this fish was dead by the time it was found, a team of scientists from Portugal helped pull the giant fish out of the water to measure it. It turned out to be a world record holder. Let’s meet the bumphead sunfish!

This post was updated on June 21, 2025 to include Idaho's new record-breaking grass carp.

According to the Australian Museum, the largest living bony fish in the world is the bumphead sunfish, also known as the southern sunfish, short sunfish, Ramsay's sunfish, and even Southern Ocean sunfish. They are found everywhere in the world excluding the Arctic and Antarctic. Their scientific name is Mola alexandrine.

The bumphead sunfish pulled out of the Atlantic was 10.6 feet long and 6,050 pounds. While sunfishes are the heaviest bony fish in the world, the bumphead is the largest.

Sunfish didn't get their names accidentally. They are sunbathers that depend on the sun's warm rays to regulate their body temperature. They especially need the sun's rays after they hunt.

One of the most reoccurring items on the bumphead sunfish’s menu is the jellyfish. While jellyfishes have low nutritional value, there are lots of them, which reduces the chances of food scarcity.

Bumphead sunfish also eat small fish, algae, plankton, and even mollusks. They may also eat crustaceans, salps, and hydrozoans. These fish are active predators and spend a lot of their time in deep waters hunting for food. Sunfish have been spotted up to 200 meters deep.

Consequently, sunfish only hunt during the day when they can get back to the surface for the sun to warm them up after their freezing hunts. At night, these fish rest or scavenge the warmer parts of their habitats for food.

Bumphead sunfish look quite similar to other species of sunfish, such as the ocean sunfish, hoodwinker sunfish, and slender sunfish. However, some distinguishable features of the bumphead set it apart from its relatives. First, they have a bump on their head and one on their chin, which gave rise to their name. They also feature rectangular body scales and about 14 to 24 fin rays.

Bumpheads also look a lot like pufferfish, which are one of the most poisonous fish in the world. For this reason, the two species are often confused with each other, and some wrongly deem the sunfish poisonous. However, bumphead sunfish are not poisonous or dangerous to humans. Despite this, they may still pose a threat because of their size.

According to the Australian Museum, in 1998 a sunfish became stuck on a cement carrier. After the fish was removed, it managed to get itself stuck a second time on yet another ship.

The sunfish's skin was so rough that it wore off all the paint on the side of the boat it was stuck to. Authorities state that it weighed about 3,000 pounds, which is largely below the maximum weight the species can attain.

Sunfish aren't normally big. Their average length is 5 feet 11 inches. If you measure from fin to fin, the average length is 8 feet, 2 inches. They typically weigh between 545 and 2,205 pounds.

In captivity, an ocean sunfish lives for around 10 years. The lifespan of a wild ocean sunfish is unknown. We do know a lot about their growth rate, however. They increase in weight from 50 pounds to nearly 900 pounds in only 15 months!

Ocean sunfish or Mola mola have small mouths and large eyes on their massive heads.

The Azores is a remote area in Europe. It is home to many marine mammals, like whales and dolphins. There are several species of whales in the Azores, including pilot, sperm, and false killer whales. You may also see hammerhead sharks, flying fish, swordfish, or blue marlins.

Several living animals had relatives that experienced gigantism during the Age of Dinosaurs. Fishes have been around for quite a long time and have evolved, reaching different sizes and having different adaptations. According to reports, the oldest fish in the world lived about 500 million years ago. However, the largest bony fish did not come to be until 165 million years ago, during the later parts of the Jurassic Period.

The largest bony fish ever is the Leedsichthys problematicus. The giant fish weighed about 45 tons and reached about 55 feet at maturity. This fish was bigger than even the Megalodon. Leedsichthys problematicus, like the whale and the basking shark, was a filter feeder and a docile sea monster.

When arguments about the largest fish are made, some erroneously assume the title belongs to the blue whale. However, most of us know that whales are not fish; whales are mammals.

The 'biggest fish' title doesn't belong to the sunfish, either. While it is large, it still pales in comparison to the largest fish in the world, the whale shark. And no, the whale shark isn't a whale. It is simply an exceptionally large, whale-sized shark. This fish can grow as long as 60 feet and weigh as much as 41,887 pounds!