The power for a tigerfish to jump off out of the piddle and seize low - flying birds out of the air has only been the stuff of local fable in Africa - until now . For the first time , research worker have been able to catch this practice on motion-picture show and twenty case were observed and documented . The squad was extend by G. C. O’Brien of North - West University in Potchfstroom , South Africa and the results were published in theJournal of Fish Biology .
African tigerfish(Hydrocynus vittatus)live in various freshwater bodies around Africa . Fully grown males can grow just over a meter in length ( 40 inches ) with female person slenderly smaller . They have sixteen prominent razor - sharp teeth , which has lead many to liken their appearing to an elongate caribe . Thoughtheir documented dietnormally consists of Pisces the Fishes and invertebrate , many hoi polloi take to have keep the tigerfish jumping out of the weewee to catch birds . Though the stories have been around since around World War II , there was never any real evidence that a freshwaterfish preyed upon fly shuttlecock until a recent field .
While the team from North - West University was studying tagged tigerfish in the gentleman’s gentleman - made freshwater lake by the Schroda Dam in South Africa , they were able toobserve 20 instancesof the tigerfish exiting the water in an attempt to catch a bird . What had merely been an anecdotal fable for 70 twelvemonth had now been witnessed , take , and scientifically describe by research worker for the first time . African fresh water Pisces the Fishes are not well - studied , which may have contribute to the delay in describing this phenomenon .
The researchers discovered that the tigerfish have two main methods of attacking barn swallows : grabbing the shuttlecock near the surface , or start from deeper water and gaining speed to leap higher into the air . Because the birds can likely see the Pisces , surface attacks are n’t incredibly efficient and have a 14 % success charge per unit . When the fish jump gamy out of the water , it was successful 33 % of the clip . The tigerfish belike has a mechanics to remunerate for the skew image due to loose refracting on the surface .
It is very exciting that this phenomenon has finally been recorded after all of this time of speculation . Of course , this opens up the tigerfish to become preyed upon by declamatory predatory chick in the orbit , though that was not observed during this study . succeeding study will investigate other tigerfish in the genus for a similar hunt ability , in addition to factorisation in the tigerfish to the barn swallow ’s conservation investigation .
The video moves fast , but they do slow it down and point on the tigerfish making a repast out of a barn swallow in flight :
