Diet and Feeding Habits
The Queensland lungfish is primarily nocturnal, and is essentially carnivorous. In captivity it will feed on frogs, earthworms, pieces of meat, and pelleted food. In the wild its prey includes frogs, tadpoles, fishes, a variety of invertebrates, and plant material. No quantitative dietary data is available, but anecdotal observations clearly indicate that the diet of the lungfish changes with development. This is proven to be correlated with a change in dentition.
Lungfish larvae are bottom feeders. They eat micro crustaceans and small Tubifex worms, occasionally supplementing their diet with filamentous algae. Soft foods such as worms and plants are partially crushed with a few quick bites and then swallowed. In the adult lungfish, movement of the prey in and out of the mouth is accompanied by strong adduction of the jaws. This crushing mechanism is coupled with hydraulic transport of the food, achieved by movements of the hyoid apparatus, to position the prey within the oral cavity. The Queensland lungfish exhibits the most primitive version of these biomechanical feeding adaptations and behaviors.
Read more about this topic: Queensland Lungfish
Famous quotes containing the words diet, feeding and/or habits:
“Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty—the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously, browsing both stalk and leaves; but I shall perhaps be enabled to speak with more precision and authority by and by,—if philosophy and sentiment are not buried under a multitude of details.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As men’s habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits.”
—Baruch (Benedict)