Killer Cuckoo Catfish | National Geographic

when mom tells these babies it’s a scary
world out there so be careful she’s
saying a mouthful cichlid fish here in
Africa’s Lake Tanganyika have a big
problem with predators other fish will
do whatever it takes to get cichlid
babies and gobble them up just scaring
them off isn’t the answer
the cichlid has to create a safe haven
for its young using its mouth as both
shovel and bucket
then it moves it’s wriggling brood to
safety
mouthful by mouthful when they’re not in
the hole
the cichlid babies are in mom’s mouth
that’s why the cichlid are called mouth
brooding fish mom’s mouth is both nest
and nursery like all good moms this one
lets her babies out to play and then
provides protection when it’s time to
come home it seems like a foolproof
system for keeping the young ones safe
but it’s not let’s introduce a predator
that is so widely it’s able to hijack
the evolutionary process itself these
catfish are notorious they’re after the
eggs of the cichlid but the cichlid
fiercely defend their young
the catfish are able to pick off a few
eggs and they also drop a few of their
own eggs knowing that the cichlid
mother’s will pick them up thinking
they’re her own and so the cichlid
becomes a surrogate mother to a predator
the catfish take off never knowing what
becomes of their young ones mother does
her job letting the brood grow in her
mouth now as in a bad horror movie
the catfish eggs hatch first and the
baby catfish feast on the cichlid babies
gobbling down every single one finally
the cichlid mother releases not her own
children
but the catfish cannibal kitties
ironically the cichlid whose brood they
destroyed is the only mother they’ll
ever know more irony the cichlid mom
fails to sense the switch she treats the
catfish as if they were her own scooping
them up to protect them at the first
hint of danger the catfish have clearly
won this round in the eternal fight for
evolutionary dominance