PlanetCatfish.com

Hi!

I recently asked Erwin if hes noticed the following behaviour which he had never seen, so i thought this post might be interesting to others:
My L351 Ancistrinae sp (former L186a, Leopard Lyretail) that ive had for a few months now is sometimes showing a very interesting behaviour when i feed big chunked food (for example: cubes of frostfood that drop to the bottom, a small cabbage "Rosenkohl" in german). He comes out to check the food in a way that ove never seen on any other fish. He makes a U-form bending around the big food chunk and noticably touching it with its tail filaments moving the filaments up and down on the food. At first i thought this was just by accident moving the food around but on checking i saw it happen numerous times now.
Are there studies or reports of what these filaments are good for? Is there a high number of tasting receptors on the tail?
My theory is that hes testing the piece if it "smells" eatable...maybe i see ghosts and would be interested if anybody else had noticed such a thing before?

P.S.: The only other time i saw a pleco bend around an object was when i tried to keep a apple snail in my tank and the brunos kicked it around using a U-formed body snapping/kicking the snail around.

You would not believe how keen are a catfish's sense of taste. The entire body of a catfish is covered with taste buds (including the tail). A six inch catfish may have as many as 250,000 taste buds over the entire body. A large channel cat can have 5,000 taste buds per square centimeter of skin. Taste buds are concentrated in the barbels, but a smart cat may taste something with its tail first if he/she believes the object might be dangerous. I too have seen this so you are not crazy.

Other reasons catfish are cool.

Hearing: Pond raised channel catfish have been noted to surface in reaction to footsteps (which they know means food) of a person walking from 100 yards away.

Smell: Ictalurids have around 140 folds in their olfactory pits. More folds equal better surface area to smell with. A rainbow trout has 18 and bass 8 to 13.

Sight: Catfishes have equal numbers of rods and cones. They can see as well in the light as the dark. They also have a reflective layer of crystal behind the eye that reflect light back at the retina leading to great low light vision.

Most studies out there are for ictalurids. Similar studies on other families of catfishes are bound to turn up other unique characteristics. I'll bet you never thought that your catfish could hear you getting out of your car in the garage! Cichlids, for all their neat characteristics, are deaf and dumb compared to a catfish.
-Shane

I currently have 4 L351s, all approximately 7cm excluding the tail filaments. I haven't noticed the u shaped behavior in feeding as they get mostly spirulina and other types of flake food. I feed them bits (pinches actually, I donâ??t know if they would qualify as "chunks") of frozen fish but I have not seen seem them do this behavior yet. And believe me, I've been observing them intently since they arrived 2 weeks ago.

What I've noticed is they are more "territorial" than my other plecos. They used to have a 50 gallon all to themselves, with pots and driftwood. Yet this still chase each other when one crosses the path of the other. I've seen this behavior mostly in pseudacanthicus, even smaller specimens, but this L351 is surely more active than the others in chasing away its own kind.

I've read also in the earlier posts about L351 that there is still a confusion about this and the L350?

Hi!

thx shane for the explanation. I know they had enhanced senses but not about numbers and comparison.

@sentido when my fish gets to over a foot in length and turns all black ill believe that L350=351. (I think it will never happen though)

@all i looked up Rosenkohl and its called Brussels sprout in english.

my gibby seems to have such bahaviour as well. when i feed him he regularly forms an U form. he has the algue wafer stuck to his mouth and forms an U... really strange...

As a result of that inflammatory anti-Acanthopterygian statement at the end I feel I must reply to this

Shane wrote:Hearing: Pond raised channel catfish have been noted to surface in reaction to footsteps (which they know means food) of a person walking from 100 yards away.

That's nothing, I can hear a can of beer opening at over 800 yards. I can also sense the approach of a curry while it is still over the horizon, and can detect 1 part of chocolate in over 1,000,000 parts of any other substance.

Shane wrote:Smell: Ictalurids have around 140 folds in their olfactory pits. More folds equal better surface area to smell with. A rainbow trout has 18 and bass 8 to 13.

That's because Ictalurids have been forced to hunt in the dark by all the other cool fish, and need their sense of smell to find their rotten chicken guts or whatever it is they eat.

Shane wrote:Sight: Catfishes have equal numbers of rods and cones. They can see as well in the light as the dark. They also have a reflective layer of crystal behind the eye that reflect light back at the retina leading to great low light vision.

So do dogs. Dogs are more stupid than most root vegetables. Having a tapetum means nothing.

Shane wrote:c*****ds, for all their neat characteristics, are deaf and dumb compared to a catfish.

Cichlids have up to five layers of pigment cells, each of which can be used to transmit different messages during intra- and inter-specific communication. They can respond to stimuli by altering the pattern within a second. Some Cichlids use catfish as nursery areas for their young, and when the catfish is looking elsewhere they change colour and steal catfish caviar. There are over 500 species of Cichlid in a single African lake. They use several different sounds depending on the precise social behaiour they are involved with at any time. Cichlids keep harems. Cichlids have taken the pharyngeal apparatus to the highest degree of sophistication known so far in fish.
Cichlids are a far better model for ethologists to study because of the complexity of their visible social behaviour

I have noticed the same behaviour with my sturisomas, they do it alot both with foods and other stuff to check it out...funny to watch...

Intresting reading this.
Must check for it in my 351 behaivor.