You might have seen killer whales hunt like this, but probably not catfish.
French researchers at the University of Toulouse captured this video of catfish hunting pigeons on the shore of the Tarn River in southwest France.
The filmmakers were able to get an incredible aerial view of catfish briefly beaching themselves to grab the pigeons. Have a look.
This is not normal catfish behavior, according to a 2012 study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. According to the report:
“This extreme behavior has not been reported in the native range of the species, our results suggest that some individuals in introduced predator populations may adapt their behavior to forage on novel prey in new environments, leading to behavioral and trophic specialization to actively cross the water-land interface.”
These catfish were using hunting methods also employed by Pacific dolphins and Argentinian killer whales, which sometimes drive their prey onto beaches to capture them.
Maybe you’ll think twice about reaching your arm into that catfish hole next time.
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