The fish of the cat and the baby lay down, catching tilapia farming

Instead of raising their own children to eat cannibalism from the beginning, a fish seeks to push them away, catching farmed tilapia in their mouths.

The strange breeding strategy of catfish is revealed in a study published in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes by Anna Vinton, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, National Geographic yesterday reported. Researchers also discovered the countermeasures of victims of snail catfish taking advantage of their children.

The catfish is a crafty nourishing parasite.(Video: National Geographic).

The tendency to mate

Cuckoo catfish has an English name called cuckoo catfish , named after the bird that specialized in dropping eggs in other bird's nest. This fish is a native animal in Lake Tanganyika in eastern central Africa. Here, the catfish and tilapia follow mating tactics and the method of raising children is the complete opposite.

The catfish starts to trickle when the tilapia is ready to lay eggs and attract the attention of the male. Under normal conditions, the female tilapia horeicichlid (Ctenochromis horei) lays 1-2 eggs once and immediately swims around to suck eggs in the mouth.

This is when male tilapia seduces females to chase after it, by waving an anal fin with many small spots like eggs as bait. Females chasing males swim around until their mouths are full of sperm, helping fertilize eggs. Males and females will repeat this courtship ritual many times for hours until the female has an egg nest of 10-100 fertilized fruits in her mouth.

Catching game of tilapia attracts the pair of catfish that are mating. When the female tilapia lays eggs, female catfish also plunge into its nest eggs, sometimes it also devoured tilapia eggs. At the same time, male catfish rushed to fertilize the eggs. All of this process happened quickly in a few seconds between the female tilapia laying eggs and circling again to suck the eggs.

The catfish fish takes advantage of the protection of the baby in the mouth of tilapia to force them to feed their children.(Photo: Science).

Martin Reichard, co-author of a similar study published earlier this year but did not participate in the Vinton study, said the appearance of the catfish sometimes caused tilapia mother to panic. In order to prevent catfish from eating eggs, it quickly collected everything, including parasitic eggs. "Basically, catfish create an extremely chaotic situation , " Reichard commented.

The growth of young children

When the parasitic eggs of the catfish were safely nestled in the mother's mouth, they began to take advantage. While tilapia eggs usually hatch after 6-7 days of fertilization, catfish eggs will hatch after 2-4 days. Just appeared, the intruders will soon start eating tilapia eggs that have not yet hatched.

Kittens grow much larger than tilapia, sometimes reaching a length of 2.5cm. That size is quite large, compared to mother cat fish which is only about 10cm long. Sometimes, if there are no young tilapia, the catfish will switch to eating each other.

Countermeasures

According to Reichard, the tilapia horei cichlids in Lake Tanganyika have their own defensive tactics despite the high cost. Tilapia females sometimes spew out their entire nest eggs. This is a great way to remove the cat's neck. However, this also causes them to empty their eggs even if the cat fish does not take advantage of the eggs.

According to Reichard, common tilapia still show instincts of motherhood even for kittens despite the obvious difference in shape. "Maybe they can distinguish the eggs, but when the eggs hatch, the instinct for motherhood is so strong that they take care of the offspring of a different appearance," Reichard said.