mogfish

Founf throughout the basin of the River Durran the mogfish is particularly associated with the shallower and slower moving sections. It is famously onmiverous one of the few larger fsh to be found in the polluted waters often found downstream of large settlements.
Despite certain well founded concerns around its diet, the mogfish is widely regarded as a good eating fish, with a firm flesh and delicate flavour that belies many of the areas where it lives. Although boney in terms of the amount of bone, the mogfish is notable for its bones being few and large - a feature that makes it popular with both cooks and diners.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The mogfish is a bony fish with a large head and a flattened (oval sectioned) body. Mature, well nourished examples grow to the length of a human arm and can weigh upto 40 porro. It has a row of spines along its back that can be erected in defence and four barbels sprouting from the head that they use to help find prey.
Their preference for moving alon the bottom of the rivers they inhabit means that they have strong fins and they are capable of limited travel across land - perhaps as much as a hundred strides and so specimens may also be found in ponds and lakes.

Growth Rate & Stages

How long mogfish live is, as yet an unanswered question though the it is well known that they can live for more than 40 years. They are slow growing, reaching arm's length after around 20 years and (subject to the availability of food) may continue to grow for far longer - the largest well recorded specimen was caught in the pool at Morton and may be inspected at The Golden Eye and its skeleton is as broad as a man's armspan. How old it was and how much the richness of its likely diet in those water contributed to its size is unknown but many towns and villages along the Durran have stories of sightings (if not actually landing) similar sized leviathans.
Whilst the size they can grow to is uncertain, it is known that the female lays her eggs on the back of the male, who then carries them for several weeks before they hatch into small replicas of their parents. these initially live in the mud at the bottom of slow moving waters and grow to a hand's length before transferring to a more mobile lifestyle, about a year after hatching. Most fishermen will return to the river anything less than twice that size - partly out of knowledge that a snack today is a family feast in a few years, and partly because most of what a young mogfish is growing is bones.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

The mogfish's eyesight is poor - living in slow moving and normally turbid waters this is no much of a handicap and even if it's eyes cannot tell it what it is attacking, they can tell it that prey is present. More useful to it are its barbels which it uses to sense the water around it: perhaps the scent, perhaps the aste, perhas some other means of sensing both live and dead food. Given the choice it prefers to scavenge as dead meat seldom fights back, but many mogfish will quite happily try to take a mouthful out of anything passing that is alive. This can make fording waterways on the Durran something of a risky business.

Conservation Status

Although rarely if ever found outside the basin of the Durran River, the mogfish is superabundant and a quick breeder - there are no concerns about it going extinct (though this has been said of many species right up to the point when they actually did become extinct). Other, similar species are found in the river systems feeding into the Torren Sea.

Legends and Stories

The stories told about mogfish fall into three broad categories:-

• Size - most riverside towns and villages will have stories of the size of mogfish that have been seen or caught in their waters. Most of these can be dismissed as fishermen's tails but specimens such as the Morton Mogfish show that some (at least) have truth behind them.

• Diet - the second strand oncerns what they will eat. Whilst it is generally acknowledged that a mogfish prefers dead food to live they have been known to attach pack animals, cattle or people fording waterways. Significant injuries are rare, but it only takes the feel of something bumping a drover's leg to keep these stories alive and kicking.

• Treasure Within - many regions tell tales of fish that when cut open are found to contain coins, jewellry and such items. In the Durran basin these tales are most commonly told of mogfish. Here lore seems to be on a sound footing for if any fish is going to consume the rings off corpse, its a mogfish, and if any fish will be dredging the muddy bottom, its a mogfish.