Natures wonders: cuckoo catfish don't raise their kids (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 09, 2018, 17:21 (2388 days ago) @ David Turell

They use another fish to be brood mothers:

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/54514/title/Image-of-the-Day--Ho...

"Cuckoo catfish (Synodontis multipunctatus) have a cunning reproductive strategy. Rather than expend the energy required to care for eggs themselves, they sneak their developing offspring into the mouths of cichlids, who raise them as their own.

"Familiarity with the catfish may help the cichlids avoid being their unwilling babysitters. Radim Blažek and colleagues report last week (May 2) in Science Advances that cichlids that coevolved with the parasitic catfish rejected the eggs more often than cichlids that hadn’t. Even though the behavior led to the savvy cichlids sometimes rejecting their own eggs, they still were more successful in raising their own offspring than cichlids who accepted the catfish eggs were. "

Comment: Another neat trick learned by evolving organisms.