Kenneth Catania, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University, is making a name for himself in his field for specializing in strange animals.
(John Russell/Vanderbilt University)
And when the snake strikes, it doesn't aim for where the fish is. Surprisingly, it aims for where will be just after the attack began.
Somehow, the snake anticipates what the fish is going to do, according to Catania's research, published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
All that happens in a few hundredths of a second, too quickly for the human eye to capture, and it's not the way the final encounter between a snake and a fish usually works. Many fish are equipped with a remarkable and well studied talent that allows them to make a speedy exit when a predator appears.
Called a "C-start" by biologists, many fish can bend their bodies into the shape of the letter C, facing away from the predator. When the time is right, the fish darts away in an escape response that has been measured at a few thousandths of a second.
The snake wins, because from the get-go, the snake is in charge.
Catania lowered a hydrophone into the aquarium because fish ears sense which way the predator's sound waves are coming from, thus allowing the fish to prepare for a speedy departure in the opposite direction.
But the snake, in this case, produces sound waves from its body, not its head, and the waves come from the opposite side of the fish, thus confusing the fish about which way to depart. It's a nasty trick, but it's useful for the snake.
It may all sound like a lot of fun, but that, too, is right down Catania's alley. He may be as well known on the Vanderbilt campus for his sense of humor as he is for his research. He keeps a skull with a spear through it handy, no doubt to remind students to pay attention.
Back in his undergrad days at the University of Maryland, Catania and a carload of fellow students were pulled over by what was later described as a "surly" Maryland trooper.
The cop started asking questions about their field of neuroscience, provoking a fierce disagreement among the students over some issue that could only be meaningful to eggheads.
It turned out that the encounter was a hoax. Catania had talked a college chum into posing as the trooper in a practical joke that reportedly took a year to plan.
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