Native to China’s Yangtze River, the Chinese paddlefish was thought to be the world’s largest freshwater fish measuring up to 23 feet (7m) in length and weighing a massive half a tonne. It had a long, silver-grey body and a distinctively large mouth.

Overfishing in the latter half of the 20th century, combined with the construction of dams that blocked their migratory route, caused their numbers to decline dramatically. The last live Chinese paddlefish was seen in 2003 and a 2020 report concluded that the species was now extinct.

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Extinct animals that once roamed our planet