Friday, January 6, 2012

  Most expensive tuna fish: $736000 tuna fish sets world record (Video)

 TOKYO, Japan -- A huge bluefin tuna fetched a record 56.49 million yen ($736,000 or $1,241 per pound) at the year's first auction at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market - setting the new world record for the Most expensive tuna fish, according to World Record Academy (www.worldrecordacademy.com).

  Photo: Kiyoshi Kimura, left, cuts a bluefin tuna in front of his restaurant near Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market on Jan. 5, 2012. The fish fetched over $735,000, making it the most expensive tuna ever sold. Photo: Shizuo Kambayashi /AP ( enlarge photo )

  The Guinness world record for the most expensive tna fish was set by a single blue-fin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), weighing 342 kg (754 lb), which was sold at an auction in the Tsukji fish market in Tokyo, Japan, on 5 January 2011, where it raised 34.49 million Yen ($420,000).

Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the most people gutting fish simultaneously, set by 1,000 people of Santoña, in Cantabria, Spain.

  The 269-kilogram tuna, the largest among the 274 shipped in from around the world, valued at 210,000 yen per kilogram, will be sold to Sushi Zanmai, a major sushi-restaurant chain in the country.

  The Most expnsive tuna fish in the world was caught off Oma, in Aomori prefecture and just north of the tsunami-battered coast.

  The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he wanted to give Japan a boost after last March's devastating tsunami.

  ''I wanted people in Japan, not those abroad, to eat the number-one tuna,'' company president Kiyoshi Kimura was quoted by Jiji Press as saying.

  The tuna caught in Oma on the northern tip of Japan's main island Honshu easily beat the previous Guinness world record, set a year ago when a 342-kilogram fish sold for 32.5 million yen.

  Bluefin tuna is prized for its tender red meat. The best slices of fatty bluefin can sell for $24 per piece at tony Tokyo sushi bars.

  Japanese eat 80 percent of the catch of Atlantic and Pacific bluefins - the most sought-after by sushi lovers.