intelligent hunting technique

[the lion who ate the sun]

I just observed something interesting in my tank. The larger of my two gar was watching my ornatipinnis snapping at ghost shrimp in a densely planted portion of the tank. When it would snap, the shrimp would jump up into the water. The gar went around behind a piece of large driftwood and came out in front of where the ornate was hunting. It sat and waited for the the ornate to strike. When it did, and the ghost shrimp jumped up and away from danger it snapped at the ghost shrimp. Its timing was off, and it missed, but that was awesome to watch nonetheless. Anyone else have interesting observations to share?

 

[Etan]

When my red devil was young she was in a tank with tiger barbs. Every now and then I would give her a live treat. She learned that the tiger barbs would gang up and corner the fish and she would swoop in and devour it.

Eventually she got big enough and ate all the tigers.

 

[gzeiger]

I had a tank full of native sunfish that loved to eat crayfish. Small ones they would just swallow, but they learned to eat bigger ones by grabbing them by the tail and swimming into the glass until the crayfish broke apart and they could eat the pieces.

Every fish in the tank did this, but it was a learned behavior. Other fish of the same species not kept in that tank have never displayed this behavior.

 

[the lion who ate the sun]

Interesting stuff! Any others? One of the best parts of this hobby is getting the opportunity to observe things like this happening right in front of you. I've always been a huge fan of BBC animal documentaries. We get to have live docs right in front of us at all times.

Etan that reminds me of the scene in bbc africa where the blue whale sweeps in and takes the school of fish that the swords are feeding on.

The crayfish example is pretty amazing. It shouldn't be so shocking to see animals developing unique strategies, but somehow it always is. Did you notice the others watching the initial instance to learn the behavior? There are dolphins who collaborate with humans to catch fish in human planet. I cant remember where, but they would corral the fish to the nets, eating those who tried to backpeddal away from the humans.

Life is a beautiful, violent thing.

 

[the lion who ate the sun]

PAGING MODERATOR
If a Moderator sees this, please move this to general aquaria. This topic is bigger than just gar, and makes for interesting conversation.
Thanks,
III

 

[screaminleeman]

I "accidentally" used green sunfish to train my RBP's off of live food.

Why "accidentally" you ask? I put the two green sunfish in with the three RBP's as feeders. The Green Sunfish beat the Piranha's so bad I feared for their lives and HEAVILY fed the green sunnies meat chunks. One of the RBP's followed suit within a couple of days, and the other two then next day after the first.

Both Green sunnies were quarantined and returned to the holding pond.