Video: Tigerfish Snatches Swallow Out of the Air
OutdoorHub Reporters 01.12.14
Tigerfish are named after the ferocious feline for a reason, and it’s not entirely because they have teeth sharp enough to make a piranha jealous. According to the journal Nature, environmental researcher Nico Smit and several others have recorded the first evidence of a tigerfish leaping in the air to eat a swallow. Tigerfish have long been rumored to use this tactic to feed on birds passing overhead, but this was the first time that the activity was videotaped.
“The whole action of jumping and catching the swallow in flight happens so incredibly quickly that after we first saw it, it took all of us a while to really fully comprehend what we had just seen,” Smit told Nature.
Smit and his team saw the feat repeat several times in Mapungubwe National Park in South Africa. The following is a short video of one of the assaults.
