Life is hurried for decades, and sometimes it is too late to feel too much joy and sorrow to end itself.
In nature, some creatures can only live for more than ten years, years, or even months, but they also have to find a chance to survive while silently enduring the noise of death that can be drilled into the song of life at any time.
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It was a lake Tanganyika (Lake Tan) male cichlid, and now it had no intention of patrolling its own territory or catching prey that had just swam around. Usually at this time it should travel through the vast waters. But now, it's doing something solemn and ritualistic.
Like all living things, cichlids need to reproduce, and after the female spawns, the male instinctively holds the eggs in his mouth. It cannot eat during this time, but quietly spends a long time in a small dug pit. After a few days, the yellow egg will turn into a fry, and a group of small pocket fish will emerge from its mouth, and its meaning of existence will be fuller.
The fish does not think about life and death, but when it actually releases its child from its mouth, the fish instinct gives it far more power than the words in the philosophy books.
But now, dozens of its eggs are gone, and only three small fish have hatched. And these small fish, it seems that something is not quite right, no matter from which point of view, they are not like their own children, but more like catfish.
If the animal could communicate with each other, it might think that the cuckoo bird had plunged into the water and become a small stream of water, taking its child away and replacing it with the eggs of other fish.
But the fish does not think too much, the moment the small fish leaves the mouthpiece, the male fish instinct disappears, it does not have to worry about whose child is conceived, where its own child has gone.
It watched as the little fish that were still in its mouth swim farther and farther away, and then continued its life as if nothing had happened.
Not long ago, the cuckoo catfish passed by here, and they saw a nest of fish eggs densely sunk under the water, and not far away were two alert cichlids. When they confirmed that they happened to be passing by the spawning site, they began to swim near the eggs, taking advantage of the cichlid's negligence, and quickly rushed over, taking advantage of the chaos to mix their eggs in it.
For cuckoo catfish, the breeding season means mating, a reproductive need, but they do not include hatching as part of their reproduction, that is, they lay eggs, throw them to other fish, and never think of raising themselves.
Cichlids, who do not see through the tricks of the cuckoo catfish, will take their eggs and the eggs of the cuckoo catfish in their mouths. During the incubation period, the eggs of the cuckoo catfish will hatch quickly, and before the cichlid eggs change, they will absorb their own nutrient solution as much as possible, and then suck the nutrient solution of the cichlid eggs.
In just a few days, the cuckoo catfish seedlings will eat the eggs of the catfish and even cannibalize. As soon as the cichlid opened its mouth, the cuckoo catfish rushed out and scattered. The cichlids who have worked hard to wait will not be rewarded after a few days of starvation.
This strange breeding method is similar to the routine of the cuckoo bird, so everyone has always called this fish: cuckoo catfish (the giant-eyed catfish and the densely spotted catfish can be called cuckoo catfish).
According to foreign sources, there are at least 250 species of hatched fish in Tanhu Lake. These fish live in the same waters as the cuckoo catfish, and they have to keep their distance as much as possible during the breeding season.
Even so, there will still be strange eggs mixed in and eventually kill their own children. Although some fish try to recognize their eggs as much as possible, this way is a bit difficult for themselves, and the effect is indeed there, but their ability to distinguish is obviously not up to standard.
In fact, even without oral incubation, the eggs of cuckoo catfish can hatch in the natural environment, but they are greedy for the nutritional value of other fish eggs and will try their best to absorb the nutrient solution of other small life.
Naturally hatched cuckoo catfish, in the early stages of growth, will also see the opportunity to squeeze in when the fish opens and eat each other's eggs. Although this practice is somewhat despicable, in the natural environment, survival is the first consideration.
For a creature whose intelligence is not high and has not yet flowered, who cares whose mouth crushes whose internal organs are crushed, and who uses opportunistic means to deprive who continues to live.
The article is original by YIPAI's [YEE Aquarium World], please contact the author for reprinting