World's largest fish caught in Cambodia.Screenshot of 163.com

A fisherman on the Mekong river in Cambodia has hooked the biggest freshwater fish ever recorded, scientists said - a 300-kilogram stingray.

The giant freshwater stingray, which measured 4 meters from snout to tail, was caught and released back into the wild after being fitted with a tag. The monstrous bottom-dweller beat the previous record for biggest freshwater fish, held by a 293-kilogram Mekong giant catfish caught in Thailand in 2005, the US-funded Wonders of the Mekong research project said.

The stingray, caught in Stung Treng in Northern Cambodia, was more than twice the weight of an average lowland gorilla, experts said.

"In 20 years of researching giant fish in rivers and lakes on six continents, this is the largest freshwater fish that we've encountered," a fish biologist leading the project said.