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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."
This fish hunts land-borne insects... like the archer fish. But it leaves the water... like the mudskipper. And TFA doesn't even indicate that it breathes air, like the lungfish (or the mudskipper).
Somebody clarify how this is news.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
In Southeast Asia, catfish that comes out of the water is not really surprising. For example, the "Walking Catfish" can "walk" from pond to pond in search of better living conditions.
w00t
It very well could be the missing link. There is nothing stopping it.
The obvious answer to what would it hunt on land would be other catfish. OOOR whatever else decided to go on land too. Just because this catfish hunts on land doesn't mena it is all it huunt or eats. Catfish are aslo scavengers and eat fish. I see nothing preventing this catfish from doing the same. Actualy, i use catfish (yellowbellies) to catch other more larger catfish so it wouldn't be out of the question to say the fist landwalkers ate other land walkers of they found them on land.
If this so called missing link is a missing link and not a reletive of this catfish or a toad, then this catfish is just as evolutionary and missing linkness as the fossil found. You see whatever forced the fish to land would have effected the enitre population of fish in that area so it would be likley that more then one missing link got that ability at the same time. It is also possible that these creature are just that creature and don't show anything evolutionary outside they exist (they were and still ar ethe same animals)and went from sea to land. There are a lot of "evolution theorist" that think when the conditions were just right for life to become life, millions of different lives happened and the evolution from one cell to animal stayed within thier own species. This is to say the only thing common in a common ancestor might be the basic building blocks of raw material that was neccesary to creat life in itself. I'm in that camp with lots of others too. This is know as "the buble theory".
You do know that one way to catch catfish is to use your index finger as tackle? (and often your entire hand and parts of fore-arm...)
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Clearly this is not a helpful example to help understand the first creatures to leave the water for the land since there would have been nothing on the land for them to "arch up and pin down" in the first place. Still and interesting behaviour but it is slightly "cart before horse" in term os anything particularly probabtive.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Well, according to this, their known range extends from Angola to the Congo River Basin. So no, they are not confined to just one country or territory, but are spread out amoung several countries. And considering the conflict in that region, that list could easily change any day.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
This isn't THE missing link between sea and land animals. But it is yet another example of a phenomenon you can see throughout the animal kingdom.
Critics of evolution point to so called "intermediate structures". That somehow anatomical features have no value in a state of evolution, therefore they could not be selected under Darwin's own models. They ignore the little thing called the natural world. If you look closely you can see fish that hold their "water" to crawl around on land and tree dwelling animals like squirrels and snakes that glide from their perches to the ground. There are primitive animals in the sea with basic photo-receptors and other rudimentary sensory apparatus. All intermediate forms are out there ready to be viewed.
One primitive forms of these anatomical structures appear, it is no stretch to see that enhanced versions provide the animal with a greater capability and hence natural selection.
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