Slashdot Mirror
African Catfish Hunts On Land
Dave Knott writes "The journal Nature will be publishing a report on an African catfish that hunts its prey on land. The fish wriggles out of the swamps to catch land-based prey. From the article: 'The eel catfish, Channallabes apus, catches unsuspecting victims by arching upwards and descending upon prey, trapping an insect against the ground before sucking it up. The same trick may have been used by the very first vertebrates to venture onto land, the researchers speculate.' There is a video of the fish in action."
I would say going onto land to hunt insects (as opposed to merely hunting insects from the water or merely going on land) makes this interesting. No, its not a halt the presses type of news, but that doesn't keep it from being an interesting article.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Given a lot of time, how do fish start to crawl out of the water just because they catch insects this way?
Why is it "the tropical swamps of Africa", rather than an idea about the countries involved?
Africa is a huge place, The Worlds second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia with a hugely diverse population in 61 countries and territories.
My point is if you hear about animals found in "tropical swamps of" Asia, or North or South America you would normally hear the actual country or even state within the country it was found in otherwise you have no idea what sort of environment to imagine.
From "tropical swamps" we can only derive that it's one of the countries in Sub-Saharan africa that fall in the tropics, and that's the biggest, most diverse part and it's not one big swamp!
I could forgive them if these fish eel things are swimming all over sub saharan africa but then I would have to say what the hell have they been doing all this time?
If they are everywhere then I've probably eaten a few of these myself. Mmmm.