Climbing catfish filmed scaling waterfalls | Hacker News Reader

Climbing catfish filmed scaling waterfalls

science.org

170 pointsMaysonL44 comments

Seems they've figured out how to wiggle themselves forward using their tails, then land in a way that creates a suction between their belly and the rocks. Clever.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394405635_Bumblebee...

I think I've seen similar videos of sculpins doing this - who have a suctiony fused set of bottom fins. If sculpins do it, probably some kind of Goby also does it (the two families are very similar in many ways).

ETA: I have it backwards, it's gobies:

https://youtu.be/QYMMf18hZCs

Also Cavefish:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/25/11303774/walking-fish-tha...

And yes - as people point out, sea lampreys can do this with their sucky mouths. With with the variety of small fish with sucky mouths, probably there's even more who have learned this trick.

Nature is amazing.

this dude made an aquarium with an artificial mini waterfall for the fish to climb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0SIJNtIKM

this is the most relaxing vid I've seen in a while.

Caveman brain: "That'd be a great spot to sit and just pick up a few fish for lunch."

Catfish is disgusting to eat, at least the ones we have here in Spain, which are sometimes past 50kg.

In some places hand-fishing for catfish is a time-honored tradition! [1] [2]

Soundtrack by The Flaming Lips. Very entertaining. But I don’t think watching would make anyone want to try catfish!

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294805/

[2] https://www.okienoodling.com/

Even The catfish we get in the states isn't great. By itself it's not a good tasting fish but it's not inedible. I was given a simple recipe which is to bread chunks of catfish in a 50/50 mix of flour and corn meal seasoned with Lawry's seasoned salt and fry them in light oil. Comes out pretty tasty and even better with lemon and tartar sauce.

Farm-raised catfish (usually caught in lakes/ponds where it has been stocked) in the US is delicious to many, especially in the South and southern Midwest. Wild catfish can be good too but probably won't be if coming from particularly muddy waters.

Someone once explained to me that the "high end" farmed catfish you get in the US doesn't taste muddy because they feed them from the top of the water rather than having scavenge the bottom of the pond.

I've definitely had some good catfish in the US. Sourcing matters, and also probably how you prepare it. Breaded and deep fried is of course tasty, if not healthy.

Southeast Asian cuisines are generally very good at preparing catfish - they have a native variety called Basa which is very mild.

So Luke Bryan has been lying to me?

I love the flavor of Catfish. I don't think I've ever had it where I thought it tasted bad. In fact I find most other fish bland and flavorless (Salmon being the other main exception). Fine as a neutral base to a recipe that provides its own flavor, but not contributing much on its own, like the tofu of meats.

Catfish is disgusting to eat

Meanwhile, in Indiana where I grew up there are restaurants that advertise their catfish, if not an outright catfish restaurant. Those are probably not fish that they just caught out of a river, though.

…which are sometimes past 50kg.

Oh, well that’s probably part of the problem. Not a catfish eater myself, but the ones people eat would almost fit on a large plate.

That's kind of what brown bears do with salmon migrating up the stream / jumping out of the water.

Any smaller, and they might visually pass for shirasu.

Yeah I am wondering how many of them get picked off by birds during the climb

The original title is plural: "Thousands of climbing catfish filmed scaling waterfalls"

The word "catfish" can be singular or plural. I read it as "A catfish was filmed...". But there sure are a lot of those little fish.

Me, trying to ship in a waterfall organization

I am unreasonably upset by the tiktok-goofy-jazz music they chose.

For science.org I want something a bit more nature-documentary e.g. a thoughtful classical/ambient soundscape with David Attenborough gentle tones "And here we see...". If seeking to amuse me then go for it e.g. Ride of Valkeries/Rohirrim.

I found the music a great fit and I would not have enjoyed it as much without. I Would have closed the window if it had been Ride of the Valkyries which is far more generic and overplayed for me than anything tiktok, but I have never used tiktok.

I'm a wet blanket, but I despise documentaries that lie about the sound of their recording. I was pretty far into adulthood before I realized most nature docs have fake audio. The backing track of this video helps me know there is no useful audio for this video - no Foley or ambient mic. It's not quite as narrative as Ride of the Valkyries, granted ;)

> ...researchers also found that the [wet-rock-climbing] bumblebee catfish isn’t alone. Three other fish species were also scaling the waterfalls alongside the bumblebee catfish, and none of the four had ever been documented climbing before.

Being fish, this sounds like convergent evolution. (Vs. learned behaviors.)

They seem to all be fish that live in fairly fast flowing waters, my guess was they are able to use rocks+suction system to hold in place for stuff, they probably don't even really have a concept they are climbing a wall, it could just feel like a particularly intense rapid?

I'd figure it's slightly more complex than that (see details in article) - but I bet you're right about both the evolutionary basis for the behavior pattern, and for having bodies well-adapted to doing it.

I would say that these are not sharply defined categories, there is more a like a smooth continuum from "fast-flowing stream" to "rapids" to "small waterfall" etc.

And this is a good environment in which evolution could progressively improve rock-holding and climbing ability.

"the catfish adhered to the wet rock by creating a pressurized air bubble under their belly."

Presumably they mean negatively pressurized?

Is this like when I laid on my back as a kid by the pool and made fart sounds?

now do eels

>At this stage they stop eating, which is probably a good thing as their anus shrinks to prevent water loss.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-01-09/eels-australi...

This title had the garden path sentence effect on me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

Can you provide the bracketing??

A whole lot of "climbing catfish" were filmed in the act of scaling a waterfall.

1) There are species of small "catfishes" (on Asia or Australia if I remember correctly) known to climb waterfalls in rainforests. We are talking about > 100m long fully vertical waterfalls.

2) In fact, they aren't catfishes. Belong to a big family of mainly marine fishes called gobies. Totally different orders. Should be named climbing gobies.

3) They do it for the same reason as Salmons do: to reproduce in freshwater.

4) But unlike salmons they don't swim or jump. They climb the slippery rock wall like a freestyle climber, using the suction cups in their belly that gobies have (pelvic fins transformed), and their other fins and tail to propel

5) Somebody filmed those fishes climbing.

The article says "Rochedo, Brazil" so South American rainforests, in this case.

These species are "restricted to fresh water in South America" source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudopimelodidae#Distribution

Hum, yep. You are right, Pseudopimelodidae are catfishes. I was thinking in the Hawaiian climbing goby.

Evolutive convergence with gobies is interesting

Also interesting is the presence of Ancistrus and Hypostomus in the mix of climbing fishes. Many people keeping aquariums breed this fishes at home. The first can lay eggs and care for the fry, the second is very difficult to breed.

The catfish were the ones filming.

Huh, interesting. Doesn't happen much in fusional languages.

What a fascinating read. From the article, "the horse raced past the barn fell" is messing me up.

Same here, I'll let you know when my brain stops hurting.

It's parallel to "the dress given to the girl ripped".

There is an ambiguity allowing for a different parse, interpreting "the barn fell" as a fell associated with the barn: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fell#Etymology_3

But that one isn't intended.

I found a new one: "time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like bananas"

That is several decades old.

Akshually it was new to me :)

I would love it if there was a browser extension specifically designed to maximize garden-path value of any headline.

For this one I'd suggest:

Scoop: catfish waterfall scaling climb film

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