|
Pike Greed !! May 2006These pictures were sent to me. THANK YOU! The gentleman found a large dead pike on the shore of a southern Alberta pike lake. In its mouth was a smaller pike. Pike can't choke directly because they breath through gills. So I asked a fisheries biologist about this and he speculated that the large pike would have suffocated because its gills could not work properly and there was not enough oxygenated water passing over the gills. The smaller pikewas extracted and photographed with the predator pike. The small pike was about 60 percent of the body length of the larger fish !! What was the big fish thinking?! Once the smaller fish was part way in the predator's teeth probably prevented the smaller fish from being regurgitated. In any case, the larger fish likely had no intentions of spitting out the food. OINK! Clive Schaupmeyer
|
|
We've all seen pike and other species (like lake trout) with smaller fish in their mouths or stomachs. |
 |
| ... but have a look at the relative size of the prey and the predator! The smaller fish was well over half the length of the larger fish!! |
|
|