Leaping Killer Catfish

[Hum]

In Southwestern France, a group of fish have learned how to kill birds. As the River Tarn winds through the city of Albi, it contains a small gravel island where pigeons gather to clean and bathe. And patrolling the island are European catfish?1 to 1.5 metres long, and the largest freshwater fish on the continent. These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds.

Alerted to the fishes? behaviour by local fishermen, Cucherousset watched them from a bridge overlooking the island. Over the summer of 2011, he filmed 54 attacks, of which 28 percent were successful.

Catfish get their name for the long, sensitive whiskers (or ?barbels?) on their upper jaws, and the Tarn fishes would erect theirs when they were hunting pigeons. This, combined with the fact that only moving pigeons were ever attacked, suggests that the fish are sensing the vibrations of birds that approached the water.

Chucherousset collected samples of the catfish, as well as the three animals that they eat?pigeons, crayfish, and smaller fish. All of these prey have different levels of carbon and nitrogen in their bodies, and Chucherousset used these to show that individual catfish varied in whether they hunted pigeons, and those that did ate fewer fish.

The European catfish is an alien, introduced into the Tarn in 1983, and currently flourishing there.

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[DocM]

Probably an imported blue catfish from N. American waters, which will eat anything they can catch. Aggressive SOB's too, and they will take birds.

[Hum]

I'll ship them some of the Florida walking catfish :laugh:

[Growled Member]

These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds.

Perfect time to catch them. Much easier than using a fishing pole. Just wait for them to come to you.

[Hum]

^ Hope they don't have teeth.

[chrisj1968]

Probably an imported blue catfish from N. American waters, which will eat anything they can catch. Aggressive SOB's too, and they will take birds.

The edible varieties of catfish have a V tail. if you look at the tail from the side, the the tail of a particular catfish has a v, whereby the center of the tail is shorter the the top and bottom of the tail creating a "V" then it is an edible variety. Channels have this V shape in the tails so they are an edible variety, mud cats and blues no

just a little knowledge for those who didn't know

[DocM]

Apparently you don't know catfish.

The most commonly eaten catfish in N. America are the Channel and the Blue, and they both have forked tails. Now, it is recommended (but not generally mandated) that fish smaller than 5 lbs not be taken for eating because they're immature, and those over 20 lbs not be taken because they are the most prolific breeders. Neither has anything to do with edibility.

The catfish with a squared off tail is the Bullhead, and they too are very edible - just smaller. The most commonly caught Bullheads are the black (Ameiurus melas), yellow (Ameiurus natalis) and brown (Ameiurus nebulosus) though there are also the flat, spotted and snail varieties. There is also a white catfish (Ameiurus catus) that is often incorrectly called a "white Bullhead."

The old term "mud catfish" refers to bottom feeding catfish, including the Bullheads, and has no bearing on edibility so long as they're not taken from polluted waters. We ate Bullheads all the time.

Black Bullhead

Blue catfish - note forked tail

[Growled Member]

What kind of catfish do the commercial catfish growers use?

[chrisj1968]

What kind of catfish do the commercial catfish growers use?

Channel catfish

[Hum]

Wonder if blue catfish taste good.

[DocM]

It's bloody f'ing delicious.