Piscivorous animals are those that feed mainly on fish. They are a subgroup within the animals called carnivores , within the classification that separates the animals according to their food source. For example: pelican, sea lion, African tiger fish.
- It can serve you: Omnivorous animals
Physical and behavioral characteristics
The characteristics of piscivorous animals are having large legs, with long claws, and also having a highly developed calcar which is precisely what allows them to catch fish.
In general, the constant movements that fish make in the water and how strange that surface is to other kinds of animals make it very difficult to catch them. However, when it comes to birds , piscivorous animals are generating strategies to get hold of their prey , which they detect from some kind of disturbance in the water. Three important ones are distinguished:
- Search in height . It is the one where the animal perches about half a meter above the water.
- Low-altitude search . It is the one that has the animal waiting about ten centimeters from the water with its body parallel, its legs stretched back and its feet just above it, emitting other types of signals.
- Internal search . It is the one that has the animal introducing its feet raking with its claws in the water where it detected the disturbance.
Piscivorous marine animals
In addition to birds, some piscivores are marine animals with a very large physical build and feed on smaller fish. In this way, the existence of piscivorous animals plays a central role in relation to life in the sea, and causes some fish to develop associated defensive behaviors .
One of them is mimicry , the ability of some fish to develop crystalline colors that makes them virtually unrecognizable to the eyes of predators . However, predators also sometimes camouflage themselves to catch fish, finding them by surprise.
Piscivorous dinosaurs
Among the birds that eat fish, there is a considerable number of extinct dinosaurs , which inhabited the plant millions of years ago. This is striking since they were sometimes large terrestrial animals , but they were nevertheless capable of adapting to satisfy their need to feed on fish.
The Baryonyx , for example, developed a long, low snout with narrow jaws full of teeth, and hook-like claws to help it search for prey; the reptile Plesiosaurus, on the other hand, lived on the land and had U-shaped jaws and sharp teeth, which may have served as a trap for fish.
Examples of piscivorous animals
- Pelican
- Lemon shark
- Gavial
- Flat head cat
- Fishing eagle
- Fishing bat
- sea lions
- Water shrews
- African tiger fish
- African tiger fish
