Ze Frank Humorously Examines Fish That Suck

In a submersive episode of his True Facts series, narrator Ze Frank humorously looks at the anatomy of fish that use suction to capture their prey. These sucking fish can even elongate their jaw to reach food that’s further away.

Some of these fish have a sort of a double jointed lower jaw and that can result in some pretty strange movements…some fish create lower pressure by elongating their jaws and in that category there’s none better than the Sling-jaw wrasse. It can extend its jaw an additional 65 percent of its head length

To make matters more complicated, these fish have an internal set of jaws that prevent the prey from escaping.

Most of these fish eat their prey whole which means that after they suck the prey into their mouth hole they need to get it into their esophagus and tum tums before it swims back out for that they have a freaking second set of jaws. These pharyngeal jaws seem to help get the prey down the Chute 

True Facts Sucking Fish
Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.