Find fish jumping on land to hunt

Scientists have discovered a fish that can hunt and catch land on land. Channallabes apus eel species, found in muddy swamps in tropical West Africa.

Channallabes apus fish.( Photo: LiveScience )

Belgian researchers hope this discovery will help explain how fish species migrate from sea to land millions of years ago.

With a small head and 30-40 cm long body, tough, the Channallabes apus looks like an eel. Its menu has given scientists the first evidence of this impressive behavior - it primarily eats the beetles found on land.

They catch prey by pushing the body to the mainland, raising the upper part of the body and wishing the head down to poke insects.

Footage of Channallabes apus capturing prey.( Photo: LiveScience )

Normally, fish use gravitation to feed in the water, but since the air is less dense than water, the Channallabes apus needs a new strategy to get its prey.

" The way it positioned itself prevented prey from being pushed away, " explains Sam Van Wassenbergh, author and biologist from the University of Antwerp, Belgium. " In this way, it can put the jaws above the prey, and when it is firmly closed, it returns to the water surface to digest the insect ."

Channallabes apus uses the rest of the body to balance when it comes out of the water.

Researchers say C. apus bears many similarities to fossils of water-moving organisms found in the Devonian (about 400 million years ago), including new fossils described. recently Tiktaalik rosea.

This creature, found in the extreme north of Canada, may be a "missing link" between marine and land-based animals.

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