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Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 09 Oct 2015, 09:20
by Silurus
Re: Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 09 Oct 2015, 13:27
by MChambers
Would be tough to get live food for this fish!
Re: Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 09 Oct 2015, 20:25
by Narwhal72
Maybe they will take mice as an alternative.
Re: Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 09 Oct 2015, 23:08
by bekateen
Botero-Botero et al. wrote:The Family Noctilionidae bats are linked to aquatic ecosystems, due to their eating habits. These bats make low flights over the water surface (Tirira, 2007). The lesser bulldog bat is a bat that eat insects associated with aquatic ecosystems, such as beetles, bugs, flies, dragonflies, mayflies and moths. They can also catch fish in ponds less than 50 cm deep (Tirira, 2007). The species of this genus have a suitable morphology to capture prey on the water surface (Kalko et al., 1998).
Botero-Botero et al. wrote:Regarding the observed consumption of N. albiventris by the toad catfish, they may consider three possible explanations: 1) opportunistic predation: the bat, while foraging, accidentally fell into the water, and as he tried to leave, the catfish took the opportunity to consume it. 2) active predation: the bat was perched on the ledge of an emerging river rock or a branch close to the water surface and catfish actively hunted the bat, and 3) opportunistic consumption: the bat was killed in the river, and the catfish during its daily foraging, found and consumed the bat.
So in your experience, which of these three do you suspect is most likely? Or rather, can one even pretend to offer an educated guess?
Re: Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 10 Oct 2015, 14:52
by naturalart
Anybodies guess, but I would like to think: the cat swimming at the surface, dorsal breaking surface, bat sees fin action, attracted to possible meal, !BOOM! instant bat bonbon.
Re: Bat-eating catfish
Posted: 10 Oct 2015, 18:23
by Birger
I would think a combination of 1 and 3...subterranean fish have to be opportunistic to survive but in a subterranean situation the opportunities are often fairly specific as far as availability of prey animals(or in some cases some kind of biological growth)....in this case there must be a large number of bats in the chamber to allow the catfish to target as prey.
Birger