Here, There Be River Monsters

05/10/2012

It’s hard to believe in the age of Google Earth that there are still vast areas of the world that have yet to be explored.

Some 95 percent of the ocean remains unknown to us, no one knows how many caves are still uninvestigated and we know practically nothing about what lies beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. There are even places exposed to the sun that we’ve yet to penetrate, including vast areas of New Guinea and of the Amazon Rainforest.

Among these uncharted places are numerous little-known river systems. Winding through remote pockets of the globe, many of these remain complete mysteries, just waiting to be solved. Murky and frequently challenging to navigate, it’s difficult to know what really lies beneath their surfaces. Could these unfathomed wildernesses be harboring fantastical monsters? And if so, are they friend or foe?

Jeremy Wade — biologist, writer, television host and freshwater detective — is on a mission to reveal those secrets on River Monsters. Armed with fishing tackle, decades of angling experience and a gift for gleaning local knowledge, Wade tracks down creatures of legend in the great rivers of the world, from the well-traveled to the painfully obscure.

Most of the “monsters” he finds there stand accused of bloody crimes, including dismemberment and murder. Are they truly the ferocious beasts of lore or are some of them simply misunderstood?

Grab your taste for adventure and find out as Discovery Channel devotes this Saturday afternoon to the popular River Monsters series, airing from 3 to 6PM e/p. And be sure to catch all-new episodes of River Monsters on Animal Planet Sundays at 10PM e/p.

In the meantime, visit our River Monsters website for a deeper dive. Find out how Jeremy Wade lands these freshwater giants in our “How to Catch a River Monsters” web series, go behind-the-scenes with Jeremy in the “Monster Tales from the River” web series and find out if you have the reflexes to catch a monster in our fast-paced River Monster Game.