Going fishing, everyone dreams of great weather, good mood and, of course, a great catch. The hero of our story today, Oscar, having come fishing with friends, also hoped that everything would work out in the best way. He really didn’t want to go home with nothing. The guy was an experienced fisherman and met a lot of interesting things in his life, but on this day the river presented him with a truly amazing surprise. The man got hooked on something that he couldn’t even find a name for… 
Oscar Lundal with friends, just caught peacock perch on the Orinoco River (Venezuela), where there have always been a lot of this fish. Since childhood, the man loved fishing very much; at some point he realized that he simply could not imagine his life without a fishing rod and a boat, and therefore fishing trips always gave him special pleasure. The weather was excellent, as was the mood of all the fishermen. Everyone was convinced that they would go home with a successful catch. At least, certainly not empty-handed. The fishermen threw their fishing rods into the water, placing nets near them, and they just had to wait. After a while, the float on Oscar’s fishing rod twitched – of course, this meant that a fish was caught on the bait. 
The guy immediately began to pull the catch, and at the same second it became clear to him that there was not quite ordinary prey on the line – it was too heavy. For several minutes Oscar could not get his catch out of the river. And when he did manage to do it, and the man saw what he pulled out, he just couldn’t believe his eyes and experienced a real shock. Some completely incomprehensible fish was looking at him, and Oscar’s first thought was that this creature was no other than from Chernobyl. The man could not even call it a fish, he did not know what name to give to this creature, which resembled, rather, a mutant. Are there such perches in nature?! Later , Oscar told: 
«I’ve never seen anything like this before. The fish looked very strange, it resembled a dinosaur. It’s probably one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever seen.» In fact, it wasn’t a mutant at all, or even a dinosaur. Oscar caught a representative of the chainmail catfish family (also called the chainmail porcupine catfish). These fish have a flattened body covered with bone plates. The main diet of porcupine catfish is algae, as well as a variety of fouling on rocks, driftwood and plants. The mouth opening located below has been transformed into a suction cup, and this allows the porcupine catfish to stick to the substrate and stay on it, even despite the rapid current. 
The length of these fish can reach one meter. The color is monophonic, more often black, but sometimes there are dark gray representatives. Oscar also caught a completely unique individual – his porcupine catfish was partially albino. It is such fish that no one has ever caught. At least, such cases are not officially registered. As a result, the fishermen decided not to torment their albino catfish – they felt that such a unique creature should not fall on the dining table. The men released the fish back into the river, and none of them regretted it. 
Yes, the fishermen did not plan to go home empty-handed, besides, they probably would like to show off their unusual catch, but they considered it necessary to return the fish to its habitat. And this decision was absolutely correct. If no one has ever managed to catch such porcupine catfish, then there are very few of them on the planet. Friends, maybe one of you also caught such an amazing fish? And what did you do? Write about it in the comments, and of course share this unusual story with your friends.