Catfish eating a catfish

It is rare to capture a photo like this in any circumstance. It is descriptive, tells a story and is an image that I am sure many people would just as soon not see. But it is true to nature, and nature is what my feature is all about.

The smaller fish is a channel catfish. It was about 6 inches long an was with a school of about a dozen other small channel catfish. The larger fish is a flathead catfish. I guess it to be about 16 inches long. The largest flathead recorded was caught from the Arkansas River in 1982. It was 69 inches long, making it North America's longest known catfish. The record blue catfish weighed much more, but was only 57 inches long.

I took this photograph at the Conservation Building aquarium on the fairgrounds during the SEMO District Fair. Flathead catfish prefer clear water and living prey of almost anything that they can get in their mouth.