Three seafood merchants from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province paid 3.45 million yuan ($505,208) for this extremely rare Chinese bahaba flavolabiata (or giant yellow croaker) on February 3.

Li Shaoshuang, from Cangnan county of the coastal province, caught the 70-kilogram fish in his first cast while working offshore nearby the Xiangshan harbor.

"It was the first time I'd seen this kind of fish," he said.

Due to its extreme scarcity, the air bladder of Chinese bahaba is said to be as expensive as gold in weight. More than a decade ago, another fisherman of the same county caught a Chinese bahaba of less than 3.5 kilograms but sold it for more than 100,000 yuan.

Therefore, other fishermen on the scene urged Li to ask for at least 1 million for his.

In April 2007, a fisherman in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, netted a 49-kilogram Chinese bahaba and sold it to a restaurant for 580,000 yuan.

The restaurant cooked the fish meat but has kept the dried maw since, tagging it at 2 million yuan with words "not for sale."

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