October 2017

Some fish 'farm' their food

Working on Palmyra atoll, around 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, a team of researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara became aware of the fish's farming habit when they noticed many bite marks in specific areas of algae growing on dead coral.

They followed these patches through time and found parrotfish were feeding heavily in each patch for a short period of time. Then, the fish would allow that exact location to recover before returning to harvest the algae again.