Re: Frequency of Fish Feeding

["Roger S. Miller" <rgrmill at rt66_com>]

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Dinyar Lalkaka wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Dec 1999 03:48:02 -0500 (EST), Roger S. Miller  wrote:
>
> > How often do you suppose researchers do gut-content studies and come up blank?
> > I've never heard of it.
>
> Dear Roger,
>
> You may be interested to read "The Catfish Connection: Ecology, Migration,
> and Conservation of Amazon Predators" by Ronaldo Barthem and Michael
> Goulding (Columbia University Press: 1997). Chapter 6 deals with the diet
> of large Pimelodids. Of the 12,000 specimens whose gut contents were studied
> "less than 8 percent contained prey."  In other words, 92 per cent of
> predatory pimelodids are going hungry at any given time.


Interesting.  That's consistent with the idea that larger predatory fish
may eat less frequently than most of our more normal aquarium fish.

I work with a woman who in previous jobs assisted in a large number of gut
content surveys.  I checked with her before I posted the question and her
recollection was that empty guts were very rare.


Roger Miller

---

References:

• Frequency of Fish Feeding
• From: Dinyar Lalkaka <lalkaka at bellatlantic_net>

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