Snakehead is a fierce carnivorous fish with a great appetite and gluttony. Their prey varies according to their size.
The snakehead fry with a body length of less than 3 cm mainly eat mosquito larvae, and the snakehead fry with a body length of 3-8 cm can eat small insects, tadpoles, shrimps, fry and so on. Adult snakehead with a body length of more than 20 cm especially likes to eat all kinds of small fish and juvenile fish such as crucian carp, rice strips, loach and frog, and will prey on the same kind when they are extremely hungry. In the artificial feeding environment, besides animal bait, snakehead can also eat artificial compound bait such as bean cake and fish meal. When the water temperature is high in summer, snakehead eats more. When the water temperature is lower than 12 degrees, snakehead will stop feeding.
Predatory habit of snakehead
The snakehead swims slowly. Generally, they don't chase prey, but hide near aquatic plants or other hidden objects and pay close attention to the surrounding movements. Once it finds palatable live bait such as fish swimming nearby, it will attack quickly, capture it in one fell swoop, and eat a lot of live bait, often swallowing about half a body length at a time, and the maximum capacity of the stomach can reach 60% of the body weight. According to anatomy, a snakehead weighing 500 grams devours eight grass carp species with a body length of 10 cm in a short time, and has the habit of killing each other, and can devour similar individuals with a body length less than two thirds of itself.
The food intake of snakehead is closely related to the water temperature. In summer, the water temperature is high, so I am quite greedy and eat a lot. When the water temperature is lower than 12℃, it stops eating. In the case of artificial feeding, when animal feed is insufficient, you can also eat artificial compound feed such as bean cake, vegetable cake and fish meal.
The growing environment of snakehead
1. Low-grade fish: Black snakehead is a kind of benthic fish, which usually lives in still water or micro-flowing water with aquatic plants and soft sediments, and is distributed in lakes, rivers, reservoirs, ponds and other waters. It often dives into the bottom of the water and keeps its balance by swinging its pectoral fins.
2. Strong adaptability: snakehead has strong adaptability to the changes of environmental factors in water, especially to hypoxia, poor water temperature and water quality. When there is no oxygen in the water, it can put its head out of the water and level the back pressure. The head is long, the front is slightly flat and the back is slightly convex. With the help of the branchial organ consisting of the upper branchial bone on the back of the first branchial arch and bone fragments extending from the hyoid jaw in the branchial cavity, oxygen in the air can be directly breathed, so it can survive for a long time even in humid areas with little water and no water, and it can leave the water surface for 3 to 5 degrees in the temperature range of 10℃ to 15℃.