Fish Forensics Needed! Graphic picture warning!!

[screaminleeman]

Another who done it thread.

I added around 10 - 12 bluegills to my outdoor deck pond late last spring or very early last summer. They were originally added strictly for food to the five pond inhabitants (1 x Longnose Gar, 1 x Florida Gar, 2 x Bowfin & 1 x Albino Chanel Catfish . The majority of the bluegills were devoured in the first week or so. Only the smallest of the bluegills were alive after a couple weeks.

One of the smallest bluegill survivors growth rate way far exceeded the other small bluegills.

Low and behold after many months of cohabitation in the pond, one of the bluegills got chomped last week! You guessed it, the one that had grown by far the biggest. There are only three non-bluegill residents at this time being the Longnose Gar (Over 20"), One Bowfin (~ 13" - 14") and the albino channel catfish (~16 " - 17"). The Channel catfish can be transferred to my natural spring fed farm pond anytime now (I had targeted June originally). I will not risk transferring the LNG before late June to early July @ the 2' mark! The bowfin may not be transferred until spring 2012.

From the pictures below, two questions:

1. Who done it? (Looking for confirmation on my thoughts of the bowfin, which would be fine if it is the case, but critical if it could be the catfish!)

2. Do these "native" fish have some degree of "farming" skills in "growing" prey?

 

[Ryan75]

I'm not real familiar with Bowfin but as pictures look of the bowfin on the internet it seems their teeth are like catfish? I think what happened is that the Bowfin or Albino Cat got their mouth up to the gills and just raked across the body of the bluegill and then bite that chunk off

 

[Madding]

White meat looks pretty good actually.

 

[Joe M]

I'd put all my money on that not being the catfish. The bite is way to clean for a channel to do that. I think the bowfin did it, but I'm not familiar enough with longnose to rule him out.

I would say that there's about a 90% chance it was the bowfin.

I also do not think there is anyway they were "growing" these fish. It was just a matter of time until the clever ones got tagged.

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

White meat looks pretty good actually.

Yum Yum!

 

[Chicklette]

I would guess it's the catfish. Wow, that is graphic. Poor fish.

Oh wow, I just looked up Bowfin, they do have teeth, it could be the bowfin or catfish but see those teeth on the bowfin I would say it's him now.

 

[MyGiants]

I would say the Bowfin. The channel cat would of swallowed it whole

 

[vfc]

Any chance a snapping turtle got up on the deck?

I occasionally loose some of my bluegills to snapping turtles. I also loose fish to water snakes, Blue Herons, and kids who come into my back yard with fishing rods and nets.

It's a tough life for fish in the wild. My indoor fish don't realize how lucky they are.

 

[MonsterMinis]

gar and cats generally eat their food whole... so my money is on the bowfin.. they're known to be "cranky" towards tankmates. If gar had done it you'de see teeth marks. and likely twist marks where the fish thrashed to ty and get a peice off. Catfish will scale a fish like that... but the clean bite like that looks alot like what my aba aba knife does.

and I doubt a snapper did that.. even if it had gotten into the pond you wouldn't see that amount of scaleing.. they litaraly bite their food in half. now I could buy a painted or slider doing that kinda damage.. but you woulda liekly found the turtle still eating, and generally they can't catch a healthy fish that size. so it woulda been dead or almost dead to begin with.

 

[Joe M]

gar and cats generally eat their food whole... so my money is on the bowfin.. they're known to be "cranky" towards tankmates. If gar had done it you'de see teeth marks. and likely twist marks where the fish thrashed to ty and get a peice off. Catfish will scale a fish like that... but the clean bite like that looks alot like what my aba aba knife does.

and I doubt a snapper did that.. even if it had gotten into the pond you wouldn't see that amount of scaleing.. they litaraly bite their food in half. now I could buy a painted or slider doing that kinda damage.. but you woulda liekly found the turtle still eating, and generally they can't catch a healthy fish that size. so it woulda been dead or almost dead to begin with.

If it was a slider or something it would be a lot of little bites that would make the cut very uneven, and you would most likely know if a snapping turtle got into your pond.

The catfish would swallow the bluegill whole, as it doesn't have the teeth to be able to inflict that damage or bite a fish in half. I also agree that the gar would probably leave much more damage, so I'm almost positive that the bowfin got pissed and went after it. It wouldn't take much force from one of those things to rip a little bluegill in half. He's also probably the only fish that would kill something and not intend to eat it all after.