Science: My, what a big mouth you have!

Research has discovered some neat stuff about flathead catfish. These fish can be highly prolific in the right environment, to the point of being considered invasive, and have a large appetite, especially for smaller members of the catfish family as well as most members of the sunfish family (including bass). As such, it is not at all unusual for them to have a dramatic effect on population dynamics of certain species in some bodies of water.

A fairly recent article in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management had an interesting study concerning flathead feeding. In the article, the authors look at gape measurements and limitations for flathead catfish and how those might affect the largest size of prey that could typically be consumed. In layman’s terms, ‘gape limitation’ simply means “the limit of how wide a mouth can open”. The bigger the mouth, theoretically the bigger the food item you can eat. In largemouth bass (as well as most other species), it goes hand in hand with the “bigger fish:bigger bait” theory. It’s also why some reptiles like snakes can swallow eggs or other items much larger than themsleves. They have a hinged jaw that allows them a huge gape size compared to their overall head or body size.

Any way, what does all this have to do with largemouth bass? One of the 3 studied prey items in this survey was a relationship model between gape size of flathead catfish relative to overall body size of largemouth bass as a potential prey item. And the finding; no size of largemouth bass is safe from being eaten by flathead catfish. Some examples in their table include A.) a 28″ flathead could consume 15″ bass; B.) a 39″ flathead could consume a 24″ bass (~8+ lbs), and C.) a 47″ flathead could potentially consume a 30″ (think world record) largemouth. And flatheads get even bigger than that!