Murder/Mystery death of Mr. Paddle

[lacentrackz@gmail.com]

mata mata turtle
in spanish
mata means kill

 

[valderi123]

sorry man

 

[Chrisplosion]

my money is on the frt

My money as well.

 

[Phractocephalus Hemioliop]

Never seen a mata mata eat something to big for it's mouth. FRT's I've heard can turn on tankmates.. my bet would be the FRT.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

If looks and size alone were to judge, Mata Mata would be the top suspect. I've seen his legs and claws in action and they are very strong most likely able to tear a fish apart but as commented his mouth doesn't look big enough to catch a 10 inch paddlefish and because he uses suction action to swallow fish whole (not a strong jaw if I understand correctly) I wonder how we initiated the attack.

Incriminating evidence does point to Mata Mata because the body was found in the corner of his regular haunt.

The FRT (Fred) looks like the kindest turtle on the planet and is relatively small but I guess looks can be deceiving.

So by popular vote the turtles look to have the motive (by their very predatory nature).

Should I hang em to dry? (in other words move the turtles out or just hope it was a weak fish that motivated the kill?)

by the way Scooby Doo wasn't available for comment

 

[bigfishfarms]

Big Fish Farms just finished a predation study on paddlefish (it's what I do!) and found that they are very easily eaten. I witnessed a 20" channel cat grab and gulp a 16" polydon spathula without breaking a sweat. Everybody loves the taste of paddlefish.

This species is fairly easy to keep in an aquarium environment providing you keep them with extremely docile tankmates and start out with runts.

We cull our runts every spring and fall and sell them to the aquaria trade. Used to be we just made fertilizer out of them because they will attack each other in an intensive aquaculture environment. We keep 15,000 per 100,000 gallon tank for grow-out to stock for caviar.