catfish
dr. dolittle | April 24, 2017
Highlights from today's sessions included:
Norelia Ordonez-Castillo, undergraduate student from Fort Hays State University, presented her research on channel catfish. According to Norelia, these fish can become obese so her research was geared towards trying to find out how their receptor for LDL cholesterol differs from rodents and humans. But what I want to know is whether the obese catfish tastes better...
Image of channel catfish by Ryan Somma via Wikimedia Commons
Christine Schwartz, Investigator from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, studied how the brain of hibernating animals is …
dr. dolittle | January 29, 2014I came across this interesting video today from Animal Wire that shows a population of catfish caught hunting pigeons on land:
Who knew that catfish had more in common with cats than just their whiskers.
bleimanb | January 22, 2009Though scientists have actually known about a strange climbing catfish from the jungles of Venezuela for 20 years, it took them until last month to capture live specimens and officially name the creatures. The catfish, dubbed the Lithogenes wahari were found clinging to rocks in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. Interesting side note, the Venzuelan government named this province after Cirque Du Soleil's latest Vegas production.
Nice legs...
The Lithogenes wahari has some incredible adaptations for living in the fast moving water. It possesses a set of highly developed pelvic fins that…
bleimanb | October 10, 2008Researchers have been dispatched to the Great Kali river in India to study whether a form of giant catfish called goonches have taken to preying on humans. The Indians traditionally burn their dead in the river, which, according to local lore, has led in two ways to the fish attacking humans: #1 - because the fish have dined on a steady diet of corpses they have grown unusually large; #2 - eating dead humans has resulted in their developing a taste for flesh which may be leading them to see live humans as a viable source of food.
Biologist or redneck? You decide!
The first supposed incident…
zooillogix | July 23, 2008After some torrential rain in Pinellas County, Fla, residents were treated to some friendly neighborhood walking catfish. Once again, this was sent to us by Kevin Zelnio who runs an online Viagra store or some such. Interestingly, the link he sent us was from a recent local news broadcast, but a little bit of sleuthing showed that they were just running old CNN footage from YouTube which they tried to pass off as their own. Scoundrels! Reminds me of what we do here everyday...
zooillogix | March 15, 2007A new species of clouded leopard was identified today in the jungles of Borneo. In fact, over 400 new species of animals have been discovered in the rain forests of Borneo since 1994.
Most of the species shown below were found through the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) spectacular Heart of Borneo Initiative.
Bornean Clouded Leopard, neofelis diardi
Catfish with suction cups on its belly and protruding teeth
Lizard - new species of skink
(By far our favorite), Unidentified "Mystery Mammel"