Monday, December 10, 2012

Catfish preying on pigeons on land

There are plenty of examples of terrestrial vertebrates feeding on aquatic animals, but it is unusual for bony fish to go after animals on land. Some marine predators like sharks and cetaceans, for example, will eat birds in the water and orcas can jump onto pieces of ice to get at seals, but this is the first example of a fish that essentially beaches itself to get at prey on land. As the authors of the study note, these catfish are not native and so this may be an example of a predator taking advantage of a new food source in a somewhat 'artificial' setting.

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