A woman was stunned after she discovered a large catfish in the middle of her rice field which was so dark and covered in mud she at first thought she had encountered a giant snake.
The woman, not named in local media in Fujian Province, south-eastern China, filmed the unexpected visitor as it swam around the watery field virtually unnoticeable at first glance.
The woman said that upon taking a closer look, she saw the black creature moving around and was scared by its size.
Not expecting to see a fish in the middle of her field of all places, she originally thought it was some kind of serpent.
In the first piece of footage, she can be heard relievedly laughing after she realised it was just a harmless catfish.
Another clip shows the creature out of the water and next to the crops all covered in mud.
It is unclear how the fish wound on her land in the first place but users on Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – suggested it might have jumped over from a neighbouring pond or rice paddy.
Catfish (Siluriformes) can survive out of water for over 18 hours and are well-adapted to unusual environments, which is why they can be commonly found in rice paddies, especially in China.
Farmers will often release them into their flooded paddies as part of an ancient agricultural method that apparently helps pest control and fertilises the plants.
These fish can also move across land and drag themselves for over half a mile at a time, which is why they are sometimes known as an extremist breed.
