Bobcats and Walking Catfish

Bobcats can be found in many environments, from deserts to wetlands. Bobcats are known for their black-tufted ears, short bodies and tails. Bobcats are predators in wetlands. They eat rabbits, rodents, sheep, birds, and deer.

Do you think that the small tail on a bobcat helps it with anything?

Walking catfish (scientific name: Clarias batrachus) are able to flourish in muddy water, canals, ditches, flooded prairies and other places where fish are not typically able to live. These fish have suprabranchial arborescent organ, similar to a lung, which allows the fish to breath air. They need to stay moist to breathe. Walking catfish also have a stiff pectoral spine which allows them to move on land. They are mostly found in lower Asia, but are also found in some parts of Florida.

The diet of a walking catfish is dragonfly larva, smaller fish, fish eggs, and some plants, but is known to eat whatever they can if their environment does not contain their usual foods.

Wetlands are a good home for these fish because of the bodies of water there, so the fish do not have to worry about drying out. Also, wetlands contain a lot of insects and plants which can be a food source to the fish. Walking catfish are an invasive species. The fish come and quickly become the dominate species in an area. They can thrive in hard conditions and they lay as many as one thousand eggs at a time, so they can be bad for wetlands, because the fish can take over the area.

Walking catfish can carry the disease Enteric septicemia (ESC). ESC is a bacterial infection. Catfish with the disease usually stop eating, may chase their tails, and develop rashes, and holes in their heads, and so on. A walking catfish could pass this disease to farmed catfish, which is a worry for many catfish farmers. The fish, however, tend to live in areas far away from catfish farms.

In the last 35 second of the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_8tWFbvQ98&feature=player_embedded) you can see the catfish swimming

If you were a walking catfish, would you prefer to swim around or walk?

http://www.sms.si.edu/IRLspec/images/cbatrachus2.jpg

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/WalkingCatfish/WalkingCatfish.html

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Clarius_batrachus.html

http://www.neponset.org/WetlandRestor-PLBiocontrol-Insects.htm

http://www.uaex.edu/aquaculture2/FSA/FSA9050.htm

http://i.pbase.com/o4/64/616564/1/64613031.2GiEHi5K.pbbobcatenhanced3252copy.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC9J3U91gLU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat