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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."
I predict that, as Africa industrializes, the level of pollution will increase & these catfish will mutate into giant man-eating catfish.
Also, there will be no worshiping of Catfish Over Lords. They cannot understand you. Prostrating yourself beneath them will merely make their task easier.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Did Slashdot just report on a topic in evolutionary biology without using the phrase "missing link" to describe a theorised stage in development? Isn't there a rule against this or something?
Karma: Chameleon (comes and goes)
Direct link to video:
Link
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Well, I'll be a fish's uncle
Table-ized A.I.
Someone needs to add this to the eel catfish article on Wikipedia. It's a little lacking.
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
Of course fish can jump out of water. How else could they get into Noah's Ark?
Table-ized A.I.
Fish hunting on land and mammals turning into ocean swimmers? The world is going mad, I'll tell ya, mad!
Table-ized A.I.
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?
What with the world flooding and all, they'd have a clear enough route to the boat. The tricky part would be getting back down off Mount Ararat. As far as those creatures of the sea go, you just try to explain to the dolphins that you've saved them from the perils of the flooding sea by landing them on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert. See how they like them apples.
Karma: Chameleon (comes and goes)
You know what, for some reason in my FF, I cannot play many videos like this one, and I have to fire up the IE to do that. The video just won't open.
You can't handle the truth.
Now that's the way to go fishing. Sit by the water and the fish come to you!
It kinda looks like a Goa'uld
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
... and I'll be impressed when an orgasm does anything but feel spectacular and help me sleep.
Being that all things of existence are in constant change for the Buddha, I think he is more likely to side with the evolutionists so I don't know why you lumped him in with Jesus and Allah.
I was referencing the Simpsons.
Given a lot of time, how do fish start to crawl out of the water just because they catch insects this way?
Nat.Geo.4 12_060412_catfish_video.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0
Open QuickTime (the program)
Edit->Preferences->Browser->MIME Types
Make sure QuickTime is set as your player for your basic formats (a new Flash installation can overwrite these defaults.) This should prevent you from needing to open IE to view QuickTime videos (I've had this problem quite a few times myself.)
I don't need this, I've got a Master's Degree in folklore and mythology!
Try this (mplayer barfs unless you download it first)
movie
Not only is this video evidence that this experiment was Intelligently Designed, but in fact it proves the IMHO more important point that God Has A Tapping Finger. Take that Richard Dawkins, God Actually Captured On Video!
Can't you all see? These are not mere fish, these are THE DEEP ONES!
shame on you slashdot. satan deposits funny bones in rocks and creates demonic catfish to lead you astray of the lord. you people consider yourselves so smart, and yet you fall so easily for satan's tricks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's your missing link.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
This african fish is no match for the cleverest species of them all...
The Landshark!!!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Just wondering... how does this disprove ID? I'm not aware of anywhere in the Bible or in ID theory that says that there's no such thing as a lungfish, eel-fish, amphibian, or anything else this remarkable...
What, me? Never.
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
This was recently in the news; The scientist on the study noted the amazing thing was that the fish can eat prey exactly in the way they do underwater by "sucking it in" which doesn't allow air to come in their mouths. It would be considered a breakthrough as it proved there isn't a long evolutionary progress required to be able to feed on land as previously assumed.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
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Phone backup, contact management
Is it coincidence that this is an eel catfish?
The similarity between this fish and the FSM's Noodly Appendage should be enough evidence for ANYONE to see that the FSM is the one true creator.
RAmen
Ramen
Let's suppose that it's true that evolution is the best explanation we have for the origin of life.
If you start with that assumption then you're not going to get anywhere at all. The theory of evolution says nothing about the origin of life, nor does it set out to. Evolution is all about what happens once replicative life is in place.
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.
Ok, apparently this fish has eaten a DOZEN dogs over the years: http://user.bahnhof.se/~wizard/GUSTeng03/artiklar_ moenchengladbach.html
So this was not just a single-dachshund type of fish. No this cat had a taste for dogs.
So either we should be burning the Dover school board at the stake for Manichaenism or for denying the truthfulness of God. A Catch-22 as good as the one Novell has used to entangle SCO.
I never thought I would be living in the days when it's the Catholic Church that asserts that the Big Bang theory and evolution by natural selection are part of God's great plan, and the Protestant descendants of the Protestants who emigrated to avoid persecution by backward Catholics have become the reactionaries. Jay Gould must be spinning in his grave so fast it's distorting space time.
Pining for the fjords
Its a goa'uld symbiote. Watch out for glowing eyes and egyptian gods!
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."
"Just wondering... how does this disprove ID?"
It doesn't have to disprove ID, since ID doesn't make any testable predictions, or result in any advancements in understanding; ID's purposely deceptive design allows us to simply ignore it without any repercussions.
A class in ID would be the easiest damn class ever. "Welcome, students, to Intelligent Design 101. This is the only course in this field. You can receive your B.S. in one day, or you can receive your Ph.D. if you stay after class and help me clean the erasers. Lesson 1 (of 1): God did it. Alright, that is it for today. We'll see you at the final exam tomorrow!"
Do you really mean that the second best explanation is God did it((TM)). Even "the species have always been here" makes less assumptions, predicts as little and is therefore better than creationism.
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
You don't understand the psychology of creationists. There's no need for proof or disproof in their reality tunnel, just faith. A creationist can just wave his hand and say "God did it for his own reasons", and that's it.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
with a mantle orgasm the earth is really going to move
"Mommy, where do earthquakes come from?"
"Well, when two tectonic plates love each other very much...."
"Quiet Woman!! That's Just A Theory!! Son, it's time you learned all about Intelligent Drift."
May the Maths Be with you!
And there was me thinking it was the butler.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Mod parent and GP up for links to freaky giant catfish that breathes, walks on land, and EATS PET DOGS!!!!
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"IT MUST HAF BIN HIS NUDULY APENDIJE!!!!!!LOL"
Within six minutes of posting, you'll be at +5, Funny!
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This is old news. Maybe you geeks don't come out enough :)
Then again - I do live in Africa and most of you not... You are missing soooo much.
Cheers
Need an ISP in South Africa?
Maybe I drastically misunderstand evolution, but it seems highly unlikely that the first fish-like-thing out of the water would have been hunting insects. Theoretically it wouldn't have been hunting ANYTHING, it would have been all alone on the land. Right? It could have tried to hunt, but it would have been awfully lonely and fruitless endeavour.
--
RumorsDaily
I'm not really sure how this catfish got dragged into things. I think the implication is that most evolution skeptics don't really have a good grasp of the fundamental diversity and flexibility of life on earth: they see everything as static kinds, when the real deal is fluid, multi-talented, and often surprising.
Both macro and micro evolution are well-documented facts, of course, and chances are what you mean by "macro/micro" is something rather different from how biologists use the terms. In biology, there is no real solid divding line: macro is just how we discuss larger conglomerations and trends that come out of micro, much in the same way there is macro/micro economics.
"Then why is the the thoery of evolution being used incresasingly more to say god doesn't exist and creation couldn't possible be true?"
This is the mounting hysertia used to drum up donations to think tanks and right wing groups, but I'm not sure I see any "increasing" anything on the part of biologists or scientists.
"* Some people who claim to understand it still get it wrong"
I would say that this is fundamental to all human acitivity, religion or no. Being capable of error is precisely WHY we need something like the scientific method as our ethic: it's FIRST PRINCIPLE is that we error-prone and cannot take anything for granted.
"* Even when histroy shows it to be the most likley scenario or steps of events, it is still a guess to come to the same conclusions."
If you read what scientists do and discuss and debate, it's pretty darn hard to write off everything they are doing as guessing. Sure, there are always a lot of educated guesses in the start of exploring a new field. But then they get down to testing all the assumptions, putting the evidence through the wringer, and what they come out with is often some pretty darn solidly supported conclusions: as good and as certain as any empiricial knowledge can be. And, more importantly, scientists are always pretty good about laying out what the evidence for this or that claim is, and NOT overstating the certainty of this or that conclusion.
In general, I don't really see how any of your examples really paint science as a religion in any sense. Almost all of them are characteristics of any human social activity or debate. But when you come down to it, science is about as different from religion as any human activity can be. The principles and goals and philosophy is just radically different.
Now, one of the theories as to why the sharks have been attacking people more often lately is because their usual feeding grounds have been fished out and so they're forced to come into more shallow water to find food. I could forsee an eventual evolutionary advantage for a shark that could employ this method of hunting. It could come up on the beach and scarf down some unsuspecting seals. Or sunbathers. I wonder if in the not so distant future, we might see a shark attack at a local 7/11. Really we'd have no one but ourselves to blame.
Giant land-hunting catfish (or sharks) is a creepy thought. You KNOW that one day we'll be on the menu.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hey, what do you expect from the internet? Arguing over religion and so forth is the hottest sort of controvresy available, and people primarily comment in order to debate.
When I was growing up I saw catfish in a zoo pond climb completely out of the water and go as much as a foot to retrieve popcorn. Most catfish can leave the water to got after food. I think the unique thing about this catfish wasn't leaving the water but the way it pounched on the food. It would raise up and strike. They aren't fish but something as large as an orca will leave the water to go after food. I've seen medium sized sharks scramble half out of the water going after food. Catfish seem to be the record holders for actually completely leaving the water to search for food.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
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.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Might be interesting if a goldfish did it....
who fails the same litmus test as literal creationists. Evolution does not disprove creation, nor are the two incompatible. The fact that you make this same logical error as proponents of Intelligent Design is some pretty delicious irony.
In Soviet Africa, fish hunts you!
"I'm a Laver, not a Phyto[plankton]"
If a creationist/ID theory was made that actually fit the critera of a scientific theory (call it X), many scientists would give it a chance. Sure, there are some "evolutionists" that would be blinded by their own prejudices, but not that many. The hard part would be that the many of the reasons for promoting X would be carried over from creationism/ID, so there would be quite a stigma to overcome.
It seems that no one wants to admit that there is a "second best" explanation.
What's the second best theory of gravity, angels pulling you down?
But seriously, there's Darwinian evolution vs puncuated equalibrium, gene swaping among early organisms vs single lineage, half a dozen models of the details of human evolution, arguments over the importance of different kinds of selection (natural vs sexual, etc). There's not a lot of argument over the validity of evolution, but there's plenty of competition within that framework.
Damn Dirty Catfish!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
ID covers only the beginning of things... i.e, where it came from. Comparing ID to evolution is comparing apples to oranges... ID is better compared to, say, abiogenesis, or the Big Bang, etc... after that, ID uses the same science everyone else does. Evolution's starting points aren't any more testable than ID's.
What, me? Never.
"ID is better compared to, say, abiogenesis, or the Big Bang, etc... after that, ID uses the same science everyone else does. Evolution's starting points aren't any more testable than ID's."
This is nonsense. You're essentially saying, "once God figured out how to make everyone turn out the way currently are, he quit getting involved." The problem is getting everyone to turn out the way they are. You're disguising ID as only covering "the creation" when in fact it is essentially covering everything after the creation, since God would have had to determine that ahead of time for it to occur as it did.
As for the untestability of abiogenesis, I'm not sure what gives you that idea. If a decent theory comes along explaining how objects began to self-replicate, and scientists run tests to see if they can get self-replication to occur, then yes, it is testable. The big bang theory is also testable; although we can't physically make a big bang occur, we can compare the predicted results to what actually resulted. If they don't match up, then there is something wrong with the theory. God, on the other hand, we can never test.
Otherwise, I had been posting this from 2000 feet under water.
hilarious
I am fucking terrified.
(eeles don't have a jaw)
I beg to differ. "Eeles" may not have jaws but EELS most certainly do. The moray in particular has a strong jaw lined with razor sharp teeth that is capable of removing limbs and appendages.
So now you know why my hovercraft remains full of eels.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I will let you in on a secret....very few christians even dispute evolution because there is no reason why evolution would cause problems in their belief of God. A small percentage of christians have a problem with it, but hell, even the Pope said evolution is fine and dandy and does nothing in regards to the existance of God.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
"We Have seen event thoughout history that we belive to be true but cannot place the scientific theory inot effect. "
:)
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this. For things in the distant past that were singular events that leave few traces, we generally can apply the scientific method to evaluating the evidence, but we often have to note that the findings are tenative and speculative about a lot of the details. It's still certainly worthwhile though: what else are we going to do? The only alternative is just making things up about the past that we don't actually know to be true or not.
"We also discount things we don't understand but are very real to those who witness it. Look at the anymosity towards those researching aliens or UFO sightings/abductions."
I think subjects like this are more complicated though. While people that assert the existence of UFOs definately feel strongly about the subject, I think there are clearly a lot places where their claims are problematic and unconvincing. Again, if we don't apply science, what is the alternative? People who believe can believe, and people who don't won't, and there will be no way to resolve the debate objectively. Science is the only method anyone can think of that ultimately promises to be able to do that.
"So in essence while the scientific way is important, there needs to be a companion proccess that can co-exist that allows for untestable processes to be valid until a means to disprove it comes around."
I don't know what you mean by process though. The process by which things can be valid even if we can't prove them true or false is belief. I don't think anyone advocates forcing people to stop believing in things they can't prove: nothing can stop them, and they are free to do so. Science only comes into play when people with all sorts of different views on a subject like UFOs want to try and justify this or that position with evidence. Science can't replace belief, and there's no need to try and make it do so.
"Some "scientist" though are using this evidence as a means to prove religions are myths or crutches for the weak. I would imagine that if religion fails the scientific test then science has no right claiming thier research disproves a religion."
The divide isn't as neat as that though. If a religion makes a falsifiable claim about, for instance, the age of the earth, then its going to bump up against science, because that's something science CAN tell us about. If the religion is talking about God and the supernatural however, then that doesn't really affect science and science doesn't really affect it.
"It isn't as much the scientist I am using to make a point though, It is the "followers" of those scientists. Even in this thread, you will find someone making the statment "Evolution and the knowledge accumulated about the many extinct species says that the Christian creation myth doesn't hold any water". This shows exaclty my point in its essence. It is almost the same as a religion."
I'm not sure that it follows that just because something challenges a claim made by a religion, that the challenge is itself a religion. I do agree that some atheists will use scientific findings to challenge religious claims. But given that religious people make claims in order to promote and argue for their beliefs, I'm not sure this is really particularly unfair. Again, if a religion is going to hang its hat on a claim that is scientifically testible, then it just is exposing itself to being proved wrong.
"The funny thing is that according to UN human rights charter, they recognize that freedom of religion includes the religion of not believing in a religion. This means that Even the UN has determined that atheism is a religion now."
How can not believing in a religion be, itself, a religion?
"Now don't take cult as a bad thing, the only thing seperating a cult from a religion is the legal standing of the religion. In other words they are the same thign outs
Boy, and all this time I thought Catfish Hunter was just a pitcher for the A's... *rimshot*
Yea, thats my bad. I didn't proof read that statment and it turned out all wrong. It should have read more like this "We Have seen even thoughout history what we belive to be true but cannot place the scientific theory into effect to validate it. We still belive it corectness though." This is ment to ilistrate how we are subjectivly applying scientific principles to different subjects for our own benefit.
Our alternative is to take the first hand acount for what it is worth. You see, much like other events in history, we cannot apply scientific tests to prove or disprove the even. Even in the basics of the even, sometimes we have absolutly no evidence to prove or disprove either way. Still we look and belive it had happened because someone recorded it or we think another outcome was a direct result but have nothign other then the even and outcome as proof. Now don't get me wrong because the outcome could be proof of the even in some situations but in others it is just a grasp to make a conection. Now with UFO's and some other events, we have to wonder if it isn't an ilusion. The problem i have is the automatic distain for someone trying to find this out.
For years, we knew we had air and it was comprised of something that we needed to live. We also knew that some air would kill you. We had no way of testing it, determining what it comprises or knowing what it was. We belived in it as we needed to consume quantities of it. Because we couldn't test it, we should have automaticaly dismissed it as not existing. Instead, we worked to understand it and explain it and we know have the ability to test and verify it. Now other items outside the abilities of scient to test may exist and because we cannot test it or falsify them doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means we don't have the correct understanding of them. If we applied the same scientific values that is being used to say gods don't exist and there is no such thing as divine intervention (by some scientist as well as thier followers) we would never be able to expand outside our own knowledge.
I think this is one reason inventions follow the scifi/fiction area so much. It takes someone thinking outside the scientific constraints to go outside the box, then someone inside the constraints makes a discoverey that eventualy leads into simular technoligy.