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."

Comments

Africa eh?

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:Africa eh?

[ArsenneLupin]

...giant man-eating catfish.

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...)

*Shock* *Disbelief*

[Yst]

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?

Re:*Shock* *Disbelief*

[sumdumass]

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".

direct link

[blhack]

Direct link to video:

Link

Re:direct link

[blair1q]

It's dead already. Prompting this new slogan:

"A /. of one"

Re:direct link

[G00F]

if you post a link, you might want to make sure the url is correct.

the correct link is here

Just as God intended

[Tablizer]

Of course fish can jump out of water. How else could they get into Noah's Ark?

Re:Just as God intended

[Hannah E. Davis]

In the firm grip of one of His Noodly Appendages?

Re:Just as God intended

[CRCulver]

I knew that it would only be a few minutes before the appearance of a Flying Spaghetti Monster joke. But I fear that now that there's a mass-market book on the FSM, the humour will soon seem passé to the Slashdot crowd, used to more obscure and nerdy chuckles.

Re:Just as God intended

[Malor]

Phew, good thing there was room. It would have been awful if all the fish drowned.

Cross dressing

[Tablizer]

Fish hunting on land and mammals turning into ocean swimmers? The world is going mad, I'll tell ya, mad!

Let's see...

[greenguy]

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.

Re:Let's see...

[nwbvt]

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.

Re:Let's see...

[Rxke]

You could see it as a very early, primitive stage of going-to-the-land.

Probably, when there were no earth dwelling creatures bigger than insects, those insects would be an easy catch to anything that started to jump out of the water to get at them, because they had no defenses for something like that happening (why would they, it never happened, evolving strategies against such attacks would be wasteful, and not help them in their fitness...)
So fish that adapted this strategy would've had had ample, 'unsuspecting' prey, as opposed to water-bourne prey, which would've obviously had survival (evasive) strategies to big fish. So these fish were probably quite successful in surviving, even when food in the water was getting scarce for whatever reason.
So, that catfish demonstrates a *very* hunt-efficient evolution, and over time it would stay longer out of the water, go deeper inland, while evolving the stuff to survive outside the water (lungs)
What it shows is quite convincingly the incentive/bonus behind becoming a land-animal: more readily/easily available food.

Getting in would be the easy part

[Yst]

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.

Paging General O'Neill

[zephc]

It kinda looks like a Goa'uld

Re:New Realms

[IcarusMoth]

... and I'll be impressed when an orgasm does anything but feel spectacular and help me sleep.

Now Explain How They Develop Feet

[Proto23]

Given a lot of time, how do fish start to crawl out of the water just because they catch insects this way?

Re:Now Explain How They Develop Feet

[TapeCutter]

Probably due to the environment found in temporary waterways, freshwater eels often go across fields from dam to stream or vica-verse at nighttime. The eels use dams to breed, usually during or after rain. In Australia the lungfish goes from pond to pond using it's fins to push it along. Most permanent water in the Australian outback is in artesian springs seperated by desert but every few years the desrt floods, fish and frogs "come out of the sand" and water birds somehow "know" the inland sea has formed. Within days, pelicans, ibis, storks, gulls,,, that usually live on the coast converge in their millions on the inland sea to feast on the explosion of fish, frogs and bugs.

There are lots of places in Africa and Australia where water almost dries up, feeding from land or mudflats could be a distinct advantage over other creatures confined only to water. However I think that feeding is insignificant compared to the survival potentintial given by the ability of a species to move from a small evaporating pond to a larger body of water, even if that means laying eggs in the rapidly drying mud and hoping a flood will nuture your offspring.

Moving over land (or surviving dry periods) lets you exploit virgin aquatic environments first and is a means of escape (at least at the species level) from dying ones, getting a snack on the journey would seem to be just an added bonus. The interesting thing about TFA is that the catfish seems to habitually hunt on land.

Re:Now Explain How They Develop Feet

[Expert Determination]

You can get an overview of the general principles here. This books is pretty old but it's still good and in some ways it's better than modern texts because it doesn't take anything for granted. This is a good modern popular account of the kinds of processes involved. By time you've read all three of these you should be in a pretty good position to think about how feet might develop. None of this tells you anything about how feet actually did develop - it just removes roadblocks that make such development seem impossible. If you actually want to find out more about how feet develop a good starting point might be here though I haven't read that.

video evidence for GOD!

[martin-boundary]

I don't know why the Evolutionary contingent makes a big fuss about this video. Hasn't anyone noticed the Hand Of God at the start of the segment?

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!

Spawn of Dagon!

[SushiFugu]

Can't you all see? These are not mere fish, these are THE DEEP ONES!

clearly satan's work

[circletimessquare]

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

Walking catfish

[cciRRus]

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.

Apparently there's a German catfish that hunts dog

[Anonymous Coward]

German catfish eats a dog: "I couldn't believe my eyes. I heard the old woman screaming, she kept saying, 'My dog, my dog,' and pointing wildly at the water."

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Phone backup, contact management

Why "Africa"?

[aaron.rowe]

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.

Re:Why "Africa"?

[nwbvt]

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.

Actually even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Thats not a fish...

[thelem]

Its a goa'uld symbiote. Watch out for glowing eyes and egyptian gods!

Re:Another Nail

[brian0918]

"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!"

Re:yes, but

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

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."

First fish out of the water didn't hunt insects

[DoorFrame]

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.

Not THE missing link but ...

[willtsmith]

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.