{"id":538429,"date":"2026-03-13T19:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538429\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T19:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:54:07","slug":"this-river-giant-can-grow-over-1m-long-weigh-more-than-5kg-and-lay-an-astonishing-500000-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538429\/","title":{"rendered":"This river giant can grow over 1m long, weigh more than 5kg and lay an astonishing 500,000 eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Freshwater fish \u2013 perch, chub, bream, roach and many others \u2013 tend to spawn from April and May onwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pike are different. By mid-March, they\u2019re already thinking of breeding. The aim is to give their young a head start, so they can prey on other species\u2019 fry.<\/p>\n<p>During spawning season, small packs of amorous male pike will pursue the much larger females (most individuals over about 5kg will be female). They all eagerly jostle for position, to be in with a chance of mating.<\/p>\n<p>Large female pike, which can grow over 1m long, can produce as many as 500,000 eggs.<\/p>\n<p>A northern pike, seen here in a river in France. Credit: Herve Berthou\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Top image credit: Abadonian\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freshwater fish \u2013 perch, chub, bream, roach and many others \u2013 tend to spawn from April and May&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-538429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}