This African Fish Can Catch and Eat Flying Birds

Monday, January 13, 2014 - 10:30 in Biology & Nature

African tigerfish Smithsonian Channel / YouTube Birds sometimes eat fish. This we know. In my mind's eye I can picture a bald eagle majestically scooping a salmon from the water. But this ain't that. This is about fish eating flying birds. But fish don't catch birds in mid-air and eat them, I hear you protesting. Well, nobody told that to the African tigerfish. Nico Smit, a researcher at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, traveled to the country's Mapungubwe National Park to study the habitat and migration of African tigerfish, a toothy little bugger that must really scare the shit out of barn swallows. And for good reason. During Smit's study, published this month in the Journal of Fish Biology, he and his colleagues witnessed these fish jumping out of the water and snagging barn swallows, up to 20 times. Per day....

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