Some Alaskan Trout Use Flexible Guts for the Ultimate Binge Diet
Organs such as the stomach and intestines in the Dolly Varden doubled to quadrupled in size when eggs from spawning sockeye salmon became available each August, the researchers found. They were like vacuums sucking up the eggs and nipping at the flesh of spawned-out salmon carcasses. Then, once the pulse of eggs and spawning salmon ceased, the guts shrank and the fish lived for nearly a year off the reserves they’d built up because there is little else to eat. continued
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