Decode the phenomenon of father eating fish of fish

Unlike other animals on earth, the predation of some fish such as sandbars is beneficial for their development.

A catfish.Photo: julianrock.net .

Ashley Chin-Baarstad, a biologist at Purdue University, said eating meat is a common behavior in some "nice" animals such as sand pits. During the breeding season, a male mates with many females and oversees the eggs of all mates. After handing eggs to "guy", the females continue to search for new mates to mate.

Baarstad and his colleagues took several dozen adults (both male and female) and put them together in an outdoor tank. The team found that the males buried eggs under the sand and then ate nearby for protection. However, when Baarstad dropped a brown shrimp - a species that likes to eat eggs - into the tank, the behavior of the male fish became different. They hurriedly swallowed the eggs before escaping.

The team put the shrimp into a transparent plastic box and put it back into the tank. Although predators cannot touch eggs, male sandstorms still eat eggs when they see the shrimp. The scientists wrapped the plastic plastic box in black so that the fish could not see the shrimp and repeated the test. Fish eating eggs still happens. It seems that the goby discovered the smell of predators.

After repeating the experiment with different sized gobies, Baarstad found that the babies were more impatient than the big ones in eating eggs because they needed more energy. In addition, men with beautiful and healthy forms often eat eggs when predators are still far away. In contrast, bad and sick males always keep eggs until they feel the situation has become irreparable. Baarstad said that healthy, beautiful male gobies are ready to eat eggs because they have more chances of finding females.