A European catfish moves in to attack a group of pigeons.
Posted on 12/07/2012 7:22:13 PM PST by Theoria
In an unusual development that researchers are calling evidence of adaptive behavior, some catfish have taken to jumping on land to hunt live pigeons.
Discover Magazine's Ed Yong writes, "These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds."
Researchers captured video of the European catfish, which reside in the River Tarn in southwestern France. In the footage, several of the fish, which range in length from 3 to nearly 5 feet, are seen thrusting their bodies from the shallow banks onto land where they capture pigeons and drag them back into the water.
Some dolphins and killer whales have exhibited similar behavior, though both are mammals and better equipped to survive on land for brief periods of time.
Still, Julien Cucherousset from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse has taken to describing the catfish as "freshwater killer whales."
The study results were published in the scientific journal Plos One. The study's abstract notes:
"Among a total of 45 beaching behaviors observed and filmed, 28% were successful in bird capture.
A European catfish moves in to attack a group of pigeons.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What’s the land speed velocity of an unladen catfish?
good Lord, what on earth?? ping!
EAT MOR PIGIN!
Wot? Wot do you mean? A European catfish or a Floridian catfish?
Apparently these catfish got tired of being called bottom feeders.
Tastes like chick'in! LOL!
Seriously, catfish tend to live in water with low oxygen content, that's why you sometimes see them 'gasping' at the surface for air.
Survival out of water for short periods is no problem for one of these whiskered eating machines.
I believe this is the African catfish, wot.
An aquatic cat catching an airborne rat. Fitting.
Give it a few thousand years, and a desire to walk on land, and develop legs and air-breathing lungs, and evolution will have transformed that catfish into a land predator, and possible into a man-eating monster.
Alternatively, it may remain what it is for eternity, since on one has ever witnessed that kind of evolution from one species to another.
In another twist, here’s a bird using a tool, bait, to lure in a fish!
gone_fishing.mpeg
Sorry, link no workee!
has anyone sent them to WashDC yet?
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