every animal tries to avoid being killed self-preservation was programmed in Us by Evolution so that we don't all accidentally become extinct but you probably realize that some species are luckier than others like the catfish super family loricaria day ever heard of it these fish or rather several species of them were blessed with so many abilities and special features that are worth attention first of all these catfish have built-in armor for example bristlenose catfish are covered with a tough body armor with spines around their heads and these are not just spines they enlarge if the fish
is in danger other catfish species are even more interesting when a catfish feels threatened by a larger fish it may extend the retractable spines that are usually close to its Sid this makes its body wider which means it'll be more difficult to swallow such prey well if the Predator tries to do that anyway sharp spines will cut into its mouth the Predators lucky if those are ordinary spines because some species of catfish are actually venomous moreover the Venom of some catfish is so potent that it can kill a human approximately half of all known catfish
species there are about 3,000 of them are likely venomous but this ability is only used by fish as a defense when the catfish sets its spines in motion the pressure rips the skin over the Venom gland the Venom spills out and gets into the wounds of the Predator as you remember by that time the Predator is already wounded by sharp spines but back to the armor that nature bestowed upon catfish the entire super family Lori Cario day has it and yet I want to focus on certain species the three striped Corey is a very small
fish the length of which doesn't exceed 2.5 in they're kept in aquariums and no one even expects they can survive a panite to find find out about this the scientists had to pit two fish against each other in an aquarium and see what happens imagine how surprised they were when a Cory was cornered bitten 10 times and then wriggled free and swam away looking irritated Cory wasn't hurt or scared just Anno it any other fish should lose part of its organs in just one bite the secret to the amazing durability of the three striped Cory
lies precisely in the armor the scales of which are made of collagen and minerals able to withstand enormous pressure Cory scales grow from osteoblasts the cells responsible for building bones a hard top mineral layer of scales prevents the Piranha's teeth from piercing the armor and the soft layer underneath absorbs the force of bites the scales don't split the piranha is left without lunch and the three striped Cory can keep doing whatever it does piranhas need to make eight bytes just to put a dent in Cory's tail armor and breaking through their abdominal scales Works only
20% of the time well even these amazing fish have a in their armor the area around the gills with a gap if the piranha sinks its teeth there it can decapitate the Corey to prevent this from happening they flare out sharp spines on their pectoral F in back and drive away predators and how do you like the ability of catfish to breathe air I mean swimming to the surface and taking a breath to gain this ability the catfish had to evolve several modifications of the digestive tract that function as accessory respiratory organs well this is
not a kind of skill you might show off in front of your fish Pals at a party breathing air is required for survival in some water bodies there's too little oxygen dissolved in the water in order not to suffocate the catfish had to come up with something but they use this method of breathing only as a last resort and only under stress also in order to breathe with the stomach it must have a little food inside so you either eat or you breathe but these aren't the only unique abilities granted to Catfish by Evolution because
some catfish can survive without any water common pleo from the Lori carade family are known to survive out of the water for up to 30 hours so people sell them in the markets alive simply laying them on the counter the catfish should think the scales for this ability to live without water the thing is catfish are quite easy to spot in the water so they become pray for Birds but the birds quickly realize that they've grabbed something prickly and very hard after a couple of attempts to eat the fish they give up throw it away
and try to find a less feisty lunch as a result the catfish ends up on land and has to survive without water for some time until it manages to get to its native Reservoir Yes you heard it right these guys can also move on land they get to the water in verse of 3.3 ft per second which of course is slow from a human point of view but hey we're talking about fish here fish aren't supposed to walk on land at all let alone climbing walls like the cheda microp species does which belongs to the
same family of catfish imagine the surprise of people who were the first to see this a team exploring Limestone caves in Ecuador found a fish climbing nearly 10 ft up almost vertical rock walls what about gravity seems like this fish never heard of it and you like scientists probably wondered how a fish can climb walls well it looks like the climbing ability emerged from a series of modifications to the catfish's fin skin and mouth Yes they use their mouth to climb add to this a thin film of water on the wall and you get a
rock climbing fish at this point I wanted to make a joke like what's next fish that eat wood but then Steve showed me the Panic species they also belong to the same catfish family they're armored have spines and they eat wood moreover they GW it what for well there's a simple reason actually intense rivalry for resources forced the Panic to find a way not to die out and they discovered that there's always a lot of wood at the bottom to include it in their diet the fish have grown spoon-shaped teeth and Jaws positioned at a
high angle but it's not as simple when it comes to digestion some researchers point to special intestinal bacteria that help the pic with this other scientists argue that fish simply can't digest wood it passes through their guts in less than 4 hours and catfish intestins don't have any unique structure but what's the point of eating wood then the ponic catfish appear to be chewing on rotting wood to digest the organic matter microbes and microbial byproducts found in the spaces between the wood fibers and the wood itself is excreted as waste other freshwater catfish from the
same family are so tough they can live in saltwater usually in such conditions the fish quickly dies from dehydration its kidneys are designed to pump water out of the body all the time retaining salts but catfish don't care about such Trifles nor do they care about the fact that their fish not moles actually after walking on the ground rock climbing and eating wood there's not much that can surprise you about catfish common plecos which I've already mentioned are also known for burrowing into the bank so intensely that they cause erosion and collapses but other catfish
like to dig too for very different reasons for example to avoid unpleasant sunlight and heat to care for Offspring or stay safe from predators apparently when all other defense mechanisms no longer work all this is quite exciting but hardly for those creatures whose houses can collapse simply because catfish just love digging though this is not the only problem caused by catfish from this family since they're really good at survival species from the loric Cario day super family easily become invasive it makes perfect sense when you're this good at adapting to everything and fending off Predators
You Are by definition cooler than everyone else plus there's also people who keep catfish as aquarium pets and then release them back into the wild this is how for example common plos appeared in Florida Texas and Mexico the catfish were released there on purpose in order to control algae in the end the catfish spread to at least 13 Mexican states displacing native species and causing serious harm to thousands of Mexican families whose income depends on fishing in general in Mexico common plecos are not very liked and even got the nickname devilfish to get rid of
the invasive species catfish can be eaten more often but locals consider the fish ugly odd and poisonous this slows things things down but the strangest issue caused by the invasive catfish has to do with the manatees catfish cling to them there may be 20 30 or even 40 fish on one unfortunate Manatee it looks creepy as if the catfish are going to tear it apart though actually the catfish are not interested in either the blood or the meat of the manatees they just feed on the algae growing on their skin that is they cause no
physical harm but but imagine 40 creatures the size of a cat clinging to you it's irritating for manatees as well in an attempt to lose catfish they move more and movement means burning calories this is not good for manatees the thing is in the winter months in order to escape cold and find food manatees swim to the waters of Florida which are teeming with catfish but instead of a relaxing holiday manatees get a bunch of annoying fish they can't get rid of as a result manate s lose weight and leave warm Waters much sooner than
they're supposed to eventually a tired animal that lost weight finds itself in the cold the result is quite predictable manatees get sick and die turns out that Evolution gave catfish the ability to survive in any conditions and they ruined everything well Nature has a rather weird sense of humor if you ask a random person what fish they're most scared of they'll most likely say it's a shark yeah sharks have a reputation for being bloodthirsty Predators ready to devour anyone with extreme cruelty however there are fish you should fear much more than sharks actually compared to
them sharks seem like peaceful and innocent creatures meet Needle Fish a family of Ray fend fish that prey on other fish a signature feature of needle fish is a long narrow beak with many sharp teeth needle fish look a bit ridiculous but don't be fooled by their appearance since needle fish swm swim close to the surface they often leap over the decks of shallow boats they do it accelerating up to 37 mph it's like a small car leaping out of the water right at you needle fish jumping activity is greatly excited by artificial light at
night night fishermen and divers across the Pacific Ocean are regularly attacked by entire flocks of needle fish rushing towards the source of light at high speed they're like moths only moths don't have such sharp beaks using these beaks needle fish are capable of inflicting deep puncture wounds and for the people of the Pacific Islands this fish represents a greater danger than a shark the risk of getting injured during an encounter with a needle fish is much higher than from encountering a shark keep in mind needle fish are found not only in the Pacific Ocean in
2010 a Florida kayaker nearly died when a needle fish leapt out of the water and impaired kiled her in the chest another person was seriously injured in an attack in May 2013 in the Red Sea when a needlefish speared under his knee in October 2013 a Saudi Arabian news site reported the death of a young man due to hemorrhaging after being hit by a needle fish on the left side of the neck and in 2014 in Vietnam a fish from the needle fish family almost killed a tourist the fish bit her neck and left pieces
of its teeth in her spinal cord paralyzing the woman so yeah needlefish are not the kind of fish you'd want to see although it's worth saying that the most common Asian carp can pose a threat too especially if that's an invasive species that was introduced to the United States there were times when Asian carps leaping out of the water into boats broke people's noses jaws and even arms some of them even knocked people down the impact was that strong these carps which by the way can reach 24 in in length are found in abundance in
the waters of the United States and they leap on boats very actively if you get off with just a bruise consider yourself lucky well now let's talk about something really rare in 20110 a fisherman Jeremy Wade pulled a goliath tiger fish out of the Waters of the Congo River he actually got incredibly lucky because catching a goliath tiger fish is quite an achievement this fish is quite elusive Elusive and very dangerous the thing is the Goliath tiger fish is rightfully considered one of the scariest freshwater fish in the world this is a larger and more
dangerous version of piranha which grows up to 5 ft and can weigh 110 lb each of the 30 odd teeth of a goliath tiger fish can grow to an inch which means they're comparable to shark teeth in size with an Arsenal like that the Goliath tiger fish can easily attack not only people but also crocodiles okay let's be honest it not only can do and it actually does that biting off whole chunks from crocodiles so you realize people don't stand much chance either it's believed that these fish attack in a reflex response to a sudden
movement or Splash and they do it with stunning aggression goliath tiger fish only needs one bite to snap its prey in half well if that's another fish we're talking about of course when it comes to a human a bite like that can leave them without a finger and that would actually be the best case scenario there's no documented evidence of Goliath tiger fish killing people however locals say that it used to happen in general compared to the Goliath tiger fish all other creatures in today's video seem harmless and innocent though this doesn't mean I won't
tell you about them here for example is an alligator gar it can grow up to 10 ft long and is considered the largest of the seven known gar species some historical records claim that in the past alligator gars could gain weight up to 350 lb and of course they didn't get so big feeding on algae alone the good news is that alligator gars don't attack humans and in any case there weren't any reports of such attacks the bad news is that these fish still pose a passive danger to us because of their eggs alligator gar
eggs are poisonous if ingested this is how alligator gars protect their offspring from predators like Crustaceans adult alligator gars have few natural predators and I believe the reason might be their scales which are simply impossible to bite through to cut through the fish's armor people have to use wire cutters 10 Snips and a hatchet this is why people rarely eat alligator gars well you can imagine why right by the time you remove the scales you'll no longer feel like eating and since we're talking about Gars let's talk about a similar fish Northern Pike because they
also have an interesting feature well it's not scientifically confirmed it's just a story told by fishermen anyway it's believed that Northern Pikes shed their teeth in the middle of summer in order to grow new ones it's like deer and antlers only with teeth instead of antlers If people could do that imagine how much money we'd save on visits to the dentist researchers have been unable to find any evidence of whether Pikes are shedding teeth or not maybe Pikes are similar to sharks where one row of teeth is constantly being replaced with the next row of
teeth as they break or fall out though actually changing teeth is not something unusual for fish there's even a fish species that loses 20 teeth each day this is a Pacific link Cod a vicious omnivorous fish with more than 500 randomly arranged teeth in its mouth the Pacific link Cod actually loses and grows 20 teeth a day and feels just fine well you can get it several dozens of teeth don't sound like much when you have several hundreds of them in your mouth but how could such a large number of teeth fit in the mouth
in the first place well apparently the Pacific lingcod really wanted to have as many teeth as possible and didn't stop even when it ran out of space on its jaw if you look inside the mouth on their pallet you'll see it's also covered in teeth all the way at the back of the throat right before the esophagus there are fenial jaws tooth studded bony platforms made from modified Gill arches in short this fish has teeth literally everywhere when the Pacific lingot attacks its first set of Jaws shoots forward and pulls the prey into the mouth
where the internal fenial Jaws begin to crush and Shred the prey that sounds terrifying especially considering that pacific lods are aggressive in one of the research centers where they were kept the staff had to add tape to the corners of the tanks because the fish tried to jump out and attack everyone who passed by you can understand why these fish act like this because Nature's made them active Predators the behavior of frog fish is entirely different and they actually look strange for fish as if someone first fashioned a normal fish out of plasticine but then
accidentally crumpled it how however their appearance is of little interest to us more importantly frog fish in fact can't even swim yes Evolution not only gave them a weird shape but also forgot to give them a swim bladder frogfish have to clumsily walk or jump on the seabed given all that can they actually make good Hunters turns out they can when frog fish need to move quickly they use jet propulsion gulping water and forcing it through their back-facing gills and they move really fast whenever pre close it takes only 6 milliseconds for the frog fish
to react and grab it for comparison the reaction time of most people is 200 milliseconds in this video they tried to film the attack of the frogfish but you can still hardly make anything out frogfish use their first dorsal fin as a fishing rod luring prey closer they wiggle their bait mimicking a small fish that looks like lunch for their prey of course the rod can break but in this case the frog fish have a plan they can simply grow it back well that was a fish that looked like crumpled plasticine now it's time to
talk about a fish that looks like an underwater pug or at least like it's very surprised or upset about something all the time you one ugly mother you know this fish looks as if it had left for half an hour and then remembered it had forgotten to turn off the iron stargazers might be rather ugly goggle-eyed creatures but they're nevertheless formidable predators to Ambush their prey these fish burrow into the sand exposing only their mouths and eyes which they rotate as hard as they can this attracts the prey which the stargazers then stun with electricity
coming right from their eyes I'm serious they generate discharges like electric eels well their discharge is weaker only 50 volts compared to 600 volts generated by eels but this is quite enough after getting a jolt the prey can no longer fight back and the stargazers can have lunch turns out that these ridiculous looking creatures have killer eyes naturally the discharge also works against predators giving the stargazers enough time to break free and swim away however Simply Having bulging eyes and mimicking eels didn't seem good enough to these fish and they grew a venomous spine near
the pectoral fence the Venom is still poorly studied but it seems to be dangerous enough not only for underwater creatures in some cases it's known to have killed hum some of our viewers probably thought now Venom big deal venomous fish don't surprise anyone anymore in a way I agree with that what if we show you a fish shaped like a cube this is a real underwater tank that creates a toxic cloud the yellow box fish looks funny and cute lives in shallow water in the warmer parts of the world's oceans loves coral reefs and seaweed
these fish spend most of their time pruning algae in small invertebrates such as crustations worms and sponges from rocks and coral with their tiny mouths but having such a peaceful life in the wild would require you to have powerful protection and these fish have it their body is made up of hexagonal bony plates fused together to form a hard yet lightweight shell it encircles the inner Ros skeletal framework yes these fish have grown something like tank armor and and being a living tank means you have some serious advantages at the very least the yellow box
fish is damn hard to eat Predators simply break their teeth on the armor so they try not to take any risks well in order to get such a body these fish had to sacrifice speed and maneuverability when you're a box with fins it's quite difficult to be agile but then Evolution helped these fish out it gave them a very cool ability when threatened or simply alarmed the yellow box fish secr a slimy toxin it oozes from special cells all over the fish's body transparent toxic mucus similar to snot immediately disperses in the water column creating
a cloud of Death Around the fish due to this box fish can be very difficult to keep in aquariums a frightened box fish can accidentally poison all its mates or maybe it could do that on purpose who knows catfish that can talk to be honest this is not the kind of thing I expected to find out this morning so meet plat adoris arm matulis when these catfish are scared or threatened they make a croaking [Applause] sound and it's pretty funny sometimes catfish make these sounds when they're looking for their own kind for example if you
separate one catfish from its School it'll begin to croak actually it's no coincidence that these catfish and their relatives are called talking catfish many of them can make audible sounds and they do it in number of ways for example they produce a loud clicking noise by rubbing their spiny pectoral fins against their body armor and then resonating their swim bladder using a muscle in the back of their skull and if you still don't have a clue how it works don't be upset I also didn't get it the anatomy of fish is quite complex fish are
actually much more talkative than you might think a recent study showed that they often communicate using sounds and this feature has been present throughout the entire evolution of fish scientists claim that the ability to produce sound evolved independently 33 times some fish species have been talking for at least 155 million years and apparently still have something to [Music] say early on people only studied sounds that could be heard by the human ear above the water's surface later an underwater microphone called a hydrophone help discover that it's also quite loud under the water researchers believe that
fish talk about a wide variety of subjects including food and reproduction they use sounds to attract females scare away Predators protect food or territory and you can even pick up differences in fish voices scientists have been recording the sounds of various fish for 18 months and they got very interesting results this is what for example terapon did sound like during spawn a real fish party and this is the mullay also during a breeding season the species behind the other two voices are unknown but it's still worth checking them [Applause] out it's certainly surprising that they
began to study the voices of fish not so long ago however scientists have excuses first they had to invent adequate equipment and second well who could even imagine fish could actually talk and do it so actively that this might be of interest to science researchers say that only a small part of the animal kingdom can imitate human speech it's believed that the brain and vocal apparatus determine whether this is possible that is you need to be smart enough to make human sounds you shouldn't expect some mice to suddenly speak perfect English although seals can do
it a seal named Hoover was especially good at this he lived in the New England Aquarium in Boston and is believed to be the world's first mammal that was trained to imitate human speech Hoover's mother died but people managed to save the baby seal so he grew up in an ordinary Human family at some point Hoover began to imitate his owner's accent and say his most common phrases when the seal grew up they had to give him to the New England Aquarium where scientists finally became interested in his talents get get get we know that
Hoover could say phrases like come over here get out of here and hello how are you scientists were baffled by his ability to imitate human speech they managed to establish that the seal speaks better than parrots and Hoover became especially talkative during mating periods he must have used the knowledge of the human language to get better chances with the ladies back then in the 1970s it was still not clear what SEALs were capable of only decades later scientists finally began to get to the bottom of things for example they've noticed that if you increase the
noise level around young seals they begin to raise their voice just the way people do such results hint at the possibility that seals may have connections between their brain and larynx so far these connections have only been found in humans another study confirms The Uncanny ability of seals to imitate human speech they're indeed capable of learning and repeating many of the complex sounds fundamental to human speech and it's not just about making clear vows keep in mind this is a skill many of our closest primate relatives can't achieve seals can also recognizably sing the first
few tunes of melodies for example the Star Wars theme song seals have a rare combination of traits that many other creatures don't including a key anatomical Advantage a larynx or voice box much like the one found in humans it's still unclear why seals have such an exceptional ability and not some other animal perhaps this has something to do with their Dynamic social structure who else can imitate human speech orcas of course I sometimes think orcas can do anything at all if they really want to of course an international team of researchers working with two orcas
in an aquarium in France found that orcas are capable of imitating human speech including words like hello and bye-bye and a range of exclamations hello Amy 1 2 1 2 3 bye-bye from this we can conclude that orcas have the ability to memorize the sounds they hear this also explains why orcas from different parts of the planet sound differently yes orcas literally have dialects and orcas from different regions might not quickly and easily understand each other most likely they'll have to think and ask again if that's how animals generally Converse at the same time scientists
strongly doubt that orc is understand what they say I mean it's more of a mimicking with no real meaning behind it there's no evidence that even one of the orcas understood what hello actually meant now to the story that really made me laugh in 1984 handlers at the national Marine Mammal foundation in San Diego heard a strange mumbling coming from a whale in Dolphin tank it sounded like a conversation between two people in the distance but it was impossible to make out what exactly these people are talking about however the mumbling sounded over and over
again this went on until one day a DI surface from the tank and asked who told me to get out it was then that the handlers realized that all this time it was a male beluga whale named nak who was talking they started recording his vocal exercises and this kept going for several [Music] years turned out Knock spoke both under the water and while on the surface spontaneously and on command alone and with people around though KN didn't use human speech with his Ken I guess he thought they wouldn't understand it anyway interestingly enough the
Rhythm and amplitude of his vocal bursts and the intervals between them were found to pattern those of human speech as well as the main frequencies of the sound they were somewhere a few octaves below the usual sound characteristics of his whale species knock copied people for about 4 years but then reached maturity and St St his vocal exercises either knock has lost the ability to make human sounds or an interest in it but why did knock do it in the first place well he just seemed to enjoy it this was an animal who was willing
to try anything he was pleased to imitate speech to observe people in their reactions to establish a connection in short for knock it was a way of interacting with other species in an interesting way and since beluga whales are capable of such tricks elephants must be too after all aren't they one of the smartest animals on the planet and we managed to find a couple of examples perhaps the most impressive one is an elephant named Kosik who lives in everland theme park near Soul Kosik mimics human speech and communicates with his keeper yeah he can't
boast a large vocabulary he knows about five of the most primitive words including no good and hello it's said that Kosik makes a convincing impression of a human voice but scientists don't believe that he actually understands the words he says it's probably just senseless mimicking it's not clear why kosi started mimicking human speech at all but cognitive biologists suggest it may be due to his childhood experiences Kosik was the only elephant living in the zoo for about 5 years in his youth at an important stage of development he communicated only with people this may well
have influenced Kosik in such a way that he began to adapt his vocalization making it more human the logic behind this is very simple if you make the same sounds as other members of your group then you fit into this group better this is also observed in other species capable of imitating someone else's speech too bad Steve and I don't know Korean so we can't estimate how similar an elephant speech is to a human's but if there are those among you who understand Korean share in the comments how you'd rate kik's pronunciation wow there was
another elephant that seemed to be able to use a large amount of meaningful human speech buter that was the elephant's [Music] name he lived in a zoo in Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union and had a vocabulary of over 20 phrases for example he could ask the keepers for water and food as well as praise or chastise himself apparently as a bonus batier imitated various sounds like barking whistling and a nashing sound of rubber on glass soon these abil ities attracted the attention of the media and Beer's recordings ended up on the radio and television the
story of the talking elephant from kazakstan has also been included in several books on animal behavior and in the proceedings of several scientific conferences here's the thing though but's abilities have never really been studied by scientists so it's likely that people simply indulged in wishful thinking and beter didn't really know how to speak in a meaningful humanlike way he just figured out how to make funny sounds well since there are animals that imitate human speech or perhaps even speak like a human there's got to be animals that talk smack you probably remember the story of
the parrots at the zoo who learned a few curse words and were so prolific at swearing they had to be moved away from the visitors but here we have a completely different story it's about an Australian musk duck male named Ripper Ripper was raised in captivity in the tidb Bella nature reserve and was was once recorded making the sound of a slamming door as well as saying you bloody fool researchers believe this is a phrase Ripper likely heard from his caretaker on numerous occasions true they're not sure how old the bird was when this phrase
was first heard but at the time of recording Ripper was already 4 years old and he cursed like a human during an aggressive mating display by the way it's possible that the caretaker said to the duck you're bloody food and Ripper imitated the word food instead of fool but it's impossible to understand what exactly the bird meant especially considering the fact that the recordings were made more than 30 years ago though Ripper isn't the only example of a talking duck of this species in 2000 there was another Australian musk duck in the same Reserve which
imitated a duck of a different species it might not seem like anything special because it's still bird talk but it seems to me that ducks don't really care who to imitate for them these are just incomprehensible sounds that other animals make just like we don't care what exactly we say when we meow to cats we know that other musk Ducks this time from the UK also use sound imitation reproducing sounds like the coughing of their keeper and the squeaks of a Turn Style you probably know that many years ago fish got out of the water
and onto the land but at that time it looked like this oh or something like that back then the water was too crowded and there wasn't enough oxygen for everyone anymore there were no Predators on land only insects crawling around so fish grew Paws and lungs and they became amphibians and then a few million years later here we are hi okay however these fish have a slightly different purpose because they're not planning to evolve meet the annabis tested in commonly known as climbing perch they pose a real danger to all living things if you think
you need to be bigger to be a threat think of the Argentine ants that are slowly taking over the world compared to them the climbing perch fish are still pretty big can grow up to 9.8 in in length and don't live in colonies but that doesn't stop them from threatening any other species see that sharp dorsal fin it's only part of the climbing purchese Armament their Gill covers can change their position and are with sharp needles the fish use them to move around on land and to suffocate their enemies from the inside once a predator
has swallowed a climbing purch it will straighten its F expose its needles and get stuck in the Predator's throat sometimes this means instant death from lack of oxygen while sometimes it causes a slower death from Hunger anyone who decides to take a bite can end up in that situation larger fish Birds Turtles even mammals if they decide to swallow a climbing perch this fish won't make exceptions for anyone even holding it in your hands is a challenge both the Gill covers and the fins are very sharp and it's like trying to grab a very hot
potato which also wriggles very hot potato but let's suppose that birds start eating the climbing perch and their population starts reducing so what I mean what's the big deal it's natural selection and all that right unfortunately this works only in regions where the perch fish is already a part of the ecosystem if they arrive at a new place they can ruin literally everything for example the lack of birds can eventually lead to an increase in rodents or crop destroying insects and this is a serious problem up to 40% of the world's crops are already lost
to plant pests and diseases insects alone cause $70 billion in damage each year they're doing quite well even without the help of the climbing perch reducing the number of birds is just crazy but the climbing perch doesn't care about any of that they just take over new ter territories and if someone tries to eat them well that's their problem the climbing perch aren't interested in this domino effect where one endangered species is followed by another then by a third one and so on until everything around changes of course we shouldn't judge them after all they're
simply fish boom fish that cause big trouble but where did they come from in the first place as is often the case scientists take a long time before studying the really important things we don't know exactly where the climbing perch came from but they probably appeared in Southeast Asia over the past four decades they've made their way South through Indonesia and they don't plan to stop apart from killing Predators the climbing perch can adapt easily like many other fish that have learned to go on land they always have a plan B if the waters where
they live are too crowded the climbing perch can get out and crawl into another body of water if that one dries up they'll just wait in the mud or find another place to live not enough food they can get out on land there should be something else there wow these fish are cooler than Schwarzeneggar I hate Plan B but how do you even move around on land if you're a fish I mean don't you think that's a bit of a contradiction climbing perch have figured it out and have grown a special organ for breathing on
land it holds some water and hydrates the gills allowing the fish to live without water for days but the climbing perch needs to keep its entire body moist feel good so the fish prefers to travel at night or in the early morning when they's still due wo wo wo but you can't just go from India to Australia on De after all there are seas different Straits long distances so the climbing perch hit your ride they cling to the bottom of fishing boats and go wherever it takes them it's very convenient when you can live in
waters with different salinity isn't it plus a person can bring a climbing perch with them after accidentally catching them with the rest of the fish I wouldn't be surprised if climbing perch have already learned to pretend to be dead so that when they get to a new territory they can just get out of the boat and go about their business this is how the climbing perch are expanding their influence getting closer and closer to Australia and since the local species evolved independently of the rest of the planet one can only guess what kind of blow
the newcomers can inflict people are literally taught to recognize the climbing perch and immediately report them to the authorities perhaps the police it's a bird it's a plane no it's Superman are you crazy it's a climbing perch we have to inform the authorities yeah it's that serious news about the climbing perch approaching Australia sounded like a declaration of war native species can be as deadly as they want but they're just not used to such an adversary imagine a cactus that suddenly grew where no one had ever seen a cactus and no one was prepared for
it animals are curious they try to eat the spikes they hurt themselves and at best they get injured the same thing will happen with the fish even the spikes are pretty similar and it'll take more than a century to get used to such a neighbor and learn to live next to it if you can get used to a climbing perch at all where are all the thieves haven't you heard they went to another Lake finally in a familiar environment native species know their limits Predators already know how and who to eat pray learn to fight
back and add to this the climatic conditions all of this creates a rather fragile but perfect balance but as soon as some resilient species gets in the way everything turns to chaos such species are known as invasive and in most cases they are brought into a new territory by humans sometimes by accident but the effect is still impressive for example at the end of World War II the brown tree snake was accidentally brought to Guam perhaps the snake was in the cargo or even climbed in by the landing gear and ended up in Paradise there
were almost no natural Predators for the snake and Guam but there there were many prey animals that weren't used to being hunted as a result the tree snake began to breed at an alarming rate the snakes exterminated most of the local vertebrate species they caused thousands of power outages affecting private Commercial and Military activities those same snakes were also responsible for the death of poultry and pets as well as the emotional trauma of residents imagine an animal that is not from around suddenly showing up at your house like a lion or a hippo or even
a snake which moreover is venomous and dangerous for small children anybody would be stressed in short the snakes had a great time mission complete and because Guam is a major transport Hub in the Pacific the snake's Journey didn't end there it's been seen on other islands and even in Texas far enough from Australia Its native land that's what invasive species do over the past 500 years they've caused the death of 133% of all extinct species invasive species have been one of the causes of Extinction for 2 5% of plants and 33% of animals but snakes
fish ants and I don't know cow par snip aren't like these sudden meteorite that wiped out more than 75% of species when the dinosaurs roam the Earth this means we have to stop those animals that are trying to take over new territories among other things something will have to be done about the climbing perch you shall not pass yes yes thank you Gandalf anyone else have any suggestions fish out every fish can get our hands on that would help but only for a while before the climbing perch breed comfortably again then maybe poison wo wo
that's too harsh I mean it would help get rid of the climbing perch of course but the local fish would be poisoned along with them what's the point then so it's pretty much the same first something happens because of human activity and then this something needs to be fixed and by the way what about Australia enough time has passed since the first alarming reports have the fish made it down there well it looks like somehow people managed to slow them down or they got there and now there's no one to tell us about the [Music]
disaster some laws of nature seem well fundamental the sun rises in the East Lions hunt antelopes and trees grow from the bottom up everything is simple and clear and then you find out that frogs eat snakes really ain't that supposed to be the other way around but American bullfrogs are like ha come to Texas we'll show you what's what bullfrogs are considered one of the largest frog species on the planet up to 6 in long and weighing about a pound and that's just an average bullfrog bullfrogs don't croak they make a bellowing herd from far
away but not when the bullfrog is on the hunt these nocturnal Predators sit quietly in Ambush waiting for a snake to crawl past then they quickly lunge with their powerful hind legs got it the prey's trapped in a huge frog mouth try explaining to the bullfrog that it's the snakes that are supposed to eat them not vice versa while some snakes end up as a frog snack others offer a ride to can toads mice and beetles to save them from the flood you can sometimes see that in Australia when both Olive pythons and eastern brown
snakes are used as emergency taxi service that is species that usually feed on their passengers perhaps it was a very selfless thing to do or maybe the snakes just scheduled dinner for later and took it with them well you know takeout is usually cheaper than delivery let's head to Latin America where scientists found one of the strangest fish known to humans in the mangroves Mangrove rivis is usually point4 to 1.5 in Long lives in muddy pools and flooded crab Burrows in mangrove swamps or inside logs on land yes this fish lives on land and can
stay out of water for not just half an hour or a day but up to 6 66 days in a row of course this happens during the dry spell otherwise it wouldn't get there it's pretty hard to pull off something like that when you're a fish but these ones nail it they modify their gills to retain water and nutrients and waste products like nitrogen are excreted through their skin as soon as the water Returns the fish rolls back to the previous buildup actually this species is very territorial but when it has to live through a
drought the fish curbs its aggression after all it can be a little crowded in the logs by the way they don't need a partner to breed and also make cool jumps yes right on the ground when you live on land for 2 months you got to get around somehow right the next stop on our journey is boli Italy early in the video I said that trees usually grow from the bottom up at the ruins of baa an ancient Roman Resort things work a little differently there's a fig tree growing upside down right from the ceiling
of the arch which is actually an architectural site they say this Arch was part of the vill owned by the emperor Nero but he probably wouldn't know why the tree broke the laws of physics moreover I didn't find any reliable information about this fig tree neither how it ended up in the arch or how it survived but it continues to grow upside down it even seems to be bearing fruit how about the fruits on the trunk in the south of Brazil there's a place where you can find jabura Caba tree but only in the states
of minus gas goas and sa Pao you can find round dark berries that seem stuck to the trunk only in season for just a few weeks when the tree bears fruit the berries have a thick skin and a very sweet Center yeah you can eat them I was ready for something dangerous and quite poisonous but they say these berries are delicious they're mostly eaten fresh but the fruits begin to ferment just 3 to 4 days after they're picked so you have to do it fast or make jam out of them bake a pie look I'm
already drooling what's next on the script Steve all right so mosquitoes mosquitoes that live everywhere elephant mosquitoes are quite large you can find them in forests they prefer to stay active during the day they're surprisingly beautiful for mosquitoes no seriously just take a look at them I've never seen such beautiful blood suckers maybe it's because elephant mosquitoes don't actually drink blood adult insects subsist on carbohydrate substances like the liquid waste that aphid secrete the juice of damaged plants fruits nectar and even refuser on their menu in short they don't eat anything even close to blood
they don't even want to try why risk your life when you can find a peach it definitely won't SWAT you but the larvae of these mosquitoes hunt the larvae of other mosquitoes you get it right elephant mosquitoes actually help humans and they're good at it the larvae as it usually happens are very voracious just one elephant mosquito larvae can eat up to 5,000 larvae of other mosquitoes before it matures this can take from a few weeks to 6 months can you imagine how many dangerous larvae they can destroy over this time since we mentioned larvae
that usually live in water it's time to move to India the native land of water buffalos by the way about 90% of these animals live in Asia these are really large bulls that can weigh up to 2600 lb and grow to almost 10 ft most importantly water buffalos love water while everyone knows that hippos spend most of their time in the water you don't expect such Behavior well from relatives of cows the answer lies in the sweat glands water buffalos have too many of them especially for their size they're less tolerant of direct sunlight which
means they can die from heat exposure water buffalos need constant Cooling and they realize this so they don't go far from the water willingly some prefer deep Waters some simply roll in mud pits which they did Pig using their horns water buffalos have wide Hooves and special structure of the joints to avoid getting stuck in the mud or selt at the bottom of the pond if you've ever swam in a place like this you realize this could happen especially if you're a buffalo a big and heavy animal also when water buffalos are really hungry they
simply dive to the bottom and eat what they find there I think that's probably grass but still I wouldn't dive in a pool with a hungry water buffalo better safe than sorry and if you think water buffalo don't live up to their name here's a story for you during a flood in the Philippines a farmer was able to get out by riding a water buffalo apparently this animal doesn't care what's around it a lake or dirty water after heavy rains the farmer also took a cow with him but let's leave the water and add some
lava to this video there's a lava Cactus growing in the gpus islands and it looks well like a cactus but it grows only on recent lava flows of course even these cacti need the surface to harden first cool down and all that but still most plants and animals wouldn't like this habitat remember Mordor doesn't look like a blooming Valley does it but that's because Sauron simply didn't have lava cacti they're not studied too well but here's what I've realized when cacti anchor themselves in cracks the bacteria in their Roots literally begin to eat the lava
this releases the beneficial minerals that help the cactus grow and the cactus in turn provides food for animals and even when the lava Cactus dies its work isn't done yet the cactus turns into hummus well where there's hummus there's fertile soil for other plants the only downside of the lava Cactus is its shape it looks like well your grandma might find it inappropriate okay let's move on to more YouTube friendly Topics in South Africa there are slacker bees who refuse to work everyone thinks bees are arduous workers who are always busy and this is actually
quite true bees keep working all their lives in a day one bee can visit more than a thousand flowers so by the evening it's so exhausted it doesn't care about anything sweet or even about especially tasty flowers well you know this feeling when you're so tired that you just don't care about anything a worker bee flies about 500 m in its life that's over 5 or 6 week weeks that's the limit Beyond which lies only death of course bees have rest when they sleep it takes them about 5 to 7 hours a day and the
rest of the time they work but not the cape honey bees thanks to a genetic mutation they've learned to reproduce Without a Queen Bee simply by cloning themselves and if there's no queen bee then you don't have to work these bees sneak into other beehives and lay their eggs there so that others can feed and care for their offspring these larva mature and grow almost as big as queens and like Queens they can breed which means they don't do any work they just walk around the hive looking like they own everyone this quickly results in
the collapse of the hive but before this happens the cape honey bees have enough time to chill and then they find another Hive and leave their clones there if you think weird things can only happen on Earth check out Mars where sunsets and sunrises are blue also the sun looks very small from there though this is actually no mystery Mars is farther away from it so the Sun appears only about 2/3 the size we see on Earth what's with the color Mars is known as the red planet its soil is rich in iron oxide so
it has a reddish Hue but when fine dust Rises blue light can penetrate the atmosphere much more efficiently than any other light that explains the blue sunsets since the atmosphere is different on each planet on Uranus for example the Sun set Sky changes from Blue to turquoise and on Titan one of Saturn's moons the sky changes from yellow to orange and brown as the sun dips below the Horizon in 2010 a very scary story happened on the unza river a tributary of the vulga a woman named Vera was swimming in the river when she suddenly
noticed something weird approaching her this something swam up to her bumped into her leg and then she felt a sharp pain if this happen in the sea one could suspect that it was a shark but this happened in the river turns out it wasn't a shark but a huge catfish who decided to eat the woman the fish sank its teeth into the woman's leg and didn't let go until people forced it to retreat later doctors discovered more than 20 minor wounds on the injured leg all left by fish teeth this could cause infection and damage
to the ligamentous apparatus bleeding vascular injuries just think about it a catfish did all this the fish that's supposed to be chilling at the bottom and if you start to dig deeper it becomes clear that catfish attacks happen much more often than you would hope some of the stories are actually frightening in the' 60s not far from the Russian city of karov a huge catfish not only attacked a person but also dragged him underwater I don't know how the story ended but the locals had to ask the military for help it seems to me that
the key reason why catfish act like that lies in their diet catfish eat everything seriously they don't even care what species they're having for dinner every now and then you hear stories about a catfish dragging a dox into the bottom or biting a kid yes it does sound like an urban legend the thing is there's actually tons of evidence of catfish swallowing ducklings in the spring and even drowning adult Ducks rats also become their prey catfish are also smart enough to assess their their strengths and even come up with strategies young catfish team up to
hunt pigeons that fly in shallow water although they never do this when they grow up larger individuals track prey for a long time before attacking the stomachs of catfish caught in France are often full of undigested bird legs that is these are not isolated cases catfish actually prey on pigeons naturally even for the largest catfish a human being is too large of a prey but this doesn't mean the catfish won't attack humans for example to protect their eggs my child you are ding the child no and I'm not exaggerating when I say there are many
stories of terrible catfish attacks a large catfish has long lived in a reservoir near the Russian city of leapac according to eyewitnesses it was a really huge creature that devoured all the inhabitants of the reservoir and even dogs that accidentally ended up in the water one day that catfish even ate a pig who was puddling around in shallow water the fish that ate a pig can you imagine that now let's remember a very disturbing fact pigs and humans are very alike and even genetically compatible does this mean we should be careful around catfish too well
maybe Steve found out that sometimes they find human fingers in the stomachs have caught catfish no catfish don't bite them off from living people they don't mind the drowned ones though the more decomposed the body is the softer it becomes and the stronger it smells and catfish really love this but this doesn't mean catfish will grow to appreciate the taste of human flesh and start eating living people however in some reservoirs with a large number of catfish they introduced a swimming band why do you think they did it well probably not because the authorities are
afraid that someone will accidentally step on the catfish and slip and as it usually happens the omnivorous animal gets a nice bonus from nature and begins to spread literally everywhere at a terrible rate a few decades ago near cologne fishermen were surprised yet happy when they started to reel in catfish seemed like that was proof of how clean the water in the river was but then the number of catfish began to soar every year there were more of them in 2010 more than 14 tons of catfish were caught in the Rind moreover catfish not only
bred at a terrible rate in one region they also spread to other water bodies today catfish can be found throughout entire Europe until recently Scandinavia was the only catfish free place simply because it was too cold there temperature by the way is one of the reasons catfish spread so fast catfish are thermophilic so they multiply so fast due to industrialization and global warming well it's always the reason also people purposely released catfish fry so that they grow up and they can catch them later who knew the catfish would start catching humans oh and don't forget
these fish live long of course not as long as the Greenland sharks but the 5 foot long catfish can be about 40 years old the age of the largest caught catfish is estimated at 70 years its length reached almost 6.6 ft do you realize how big that is being this huge you can easily eat whatever you want short apparently the catfish keeps growing all its life without any limitations and the bigger the catfish gets the more it eats people who don't know catfish can grow to incredible size often think they get so big due to
radiation well what else is to blame radiation and pollution especially given that giant catfish were found in the cooling Pond of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant though actually radiation has nothing to do with it first it usually works an exactly the opposite way animals get sick and die before they can get big enough second the species Cott in Chernobyl are supposed to be large I mean originally moreover there's evidence of catching the same catfish regions with no radiation the catfish there were actually even larger radioactive catfish are just lucky creatures that have plenty of food
and no Predators around most likely in a couple of decades they'll become even bigger of course the bigger the catfish the larger its prey why waste energy and time catching some small fish when you can eat something more nutritious that's why catfish eat almost anything that they can fit in their mouths it all starts quite harmlessly with analy words gastropods Crustaceans and insects but as soon as the catfish grows up frogs fish and even other catfish appear on its menu the diet of gigantic catfish includes Birds small mammals like dogs and even sheep they swallow
them whole and catfish can afford all that not only because of the size as I said catfish are smart enough to come up with different hunting strategies they do realize very well what they're doing and besides Nature has blessed catfish with everything they need for hunting for example they have a well-developed sensitivity which allows them to sense the vibration of prey catfish are great at adapting to new food sources when they appear that is they're happy to expand their menu you can't be close to a catfish and hope it doesn't eat you because you're new
here catfish also adopt new hunting strategies when needed such as catching pigeons from the land they also analyze the migration Paths of salmon or herring even if they see them for the first time and then take a convenient position to hunt and their hunting is successful well I think I've already mentioned catfish can team up in order to chase prey overall it seems like if you live in water the only way to escape the catfish that think you'll make a good dinner is to stop breathing fish of the plis genus live in the Indian Ocean
the Western Pacific Ocean and New Guinea they say their tails look like those of eels but they're long barbles sticking out from their their faces are much more interesting they house taste buds that allow the fish to detect chemicals in the water around them they are so sensitive they can pick up the smallest changes in the acidity of the water for example those produced by the breathing of the bristle worms just exhale and that's it the catfish has found you thanks to this ability these fish can hunt even in complete darkness oh by the way
ever heard of noodling it's a way of catching catfish using your bare hands a person puts his hand into the catfish hole underwater and pulls it out but it's much more complicated than it seems first the noodler fumbles for the hole in the water if everything goes according to plan the catfish grabs the noodler's hand after which the noodler pulls the catfish out with both hands well I don't even know what could possibly go wrong here especially considering everything I've already told you about catfish the biggest danger for a noodler is the risk of drowning
the water's too deep and you don't have a friend around to help a large catfish can keep you underwater for much longer than you can hold your breath you also need to be physically strong and Hardy enough because the catfish will fight back even a fish weighing about 66 lb will become a formidable opponent remember this fish is in its element and it's capable of eating a sheep with just one blow a catfish is quite capable of fracturing a person's ribs and if at this time you're trying your best to hold your breath and not
drown then well things aren't looking great for you so no wonder noodling is considered a very dangerous activity compared to other ways of fishing it can literally kill people there are occasional news reports covering this perhaps catfish kill many more people than we know people who faced an aggressive catfish say that its bite is similar to the bite of a teething puppy but don't think it's painless catfish may not have fangs but they do have maxillary teeth thick rows of inward curving barbs designed to to let food in but not out when clamped on a
human's arm catfish also have a nasty tendency to Bear down and spin like a sharpener on a pencil this can result in Tearing Skin off let me remind you these guys love carrying and their teeth aren't exactly clean just when you start realizing that encountering an ordinary catfish is not the best thing that could happen to you you learn about electric catfish they can generate a shock of up to three 350 volts to stun unsuspecting prey however the catfish themselves are not only immune to their own discharges seems like they can't be shocked at all
props to Evolution for this immunity not so long ago scientists compared the response of electric catfish and goldfish to various stimuli observing the movements of fish after exposure to electrical discharges from another catfish and electrodes while the Goldfish were severely electrocuted by the electric catfish and completely immobilized by the electrodes the electric catfish seem to be completely unaffected by any of the shocks I'm not even sure it notic them why is this happening so far no one knows though we know for sure that people have not yet become victims of electric catfish a large catfish
can only stun a person well remember the catfish keep growing all their lives who knows maybe there's a catfish somewhere that's big enough to kill a human see you later
