How a Catfish Finds Food
Rivers and lakes can be very dark and muddy. Sunlight cannot reach all the way to the bottom. A channel catfish swims near the muddy floor where it is hard to see. How does this fish find something to eat when its eyes cannot help?
A catfish has special body parts that act like tools. Long feelers grow around its mouth. These feelers are called barbels. They look like whiskers on a pet cat, which gave the fish its name. But barbels are not hair. They are soft skin filled with tiny sensors. A channel catfish has eight barbels in all. It has two on top, two near its nose, and four under its chin.
Barbels help the catfish touch the river floor. More importantly, they help the catfish taste. The catfish uses these feelers to taste the water and mud before it even opens its mouth. In fact, a catfish has taste buds all over its whole body! Its skin can taste food that is drifting by in the river.
When a catfish swims slowly along the riverbed, its barbels drag over rocks and sand. It might taste a small bug hiding under a stone. It might sense a tiny insect larva buried in the mud. As soon as the barbels touch something tasty, the fish quickly snaps it up. Even in the murkiest water, a catfish never goes hungry.
- barbels:
- Long, whisker-like feelers on a fish used for sensing and tasting.
- sensors:
- Tiny body parts that detect touch, taste, or other signals.
- riverbed:
- The ground or bottom surface of a river.
- larva:
- A young, newly hatched form of an insect before it becomes an adult.
- drifting:
- Floating or moving along slowly with the water.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1Why is it hard for a channel catfish to see at the bottom of rivers and lakes?
- 2What are the long feelers around a catfish's mouth called?
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About this explanatory article passage for 2nd Grade
“How a Catfish Finds Food” is a explanatory article reading passage about channel catfish senses, written for 2nd Grade. It takes about 2 minutes to read (231 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.