More observations where I learned things, spiny eel division.
But to make my point, I need to mention lions first.
When lions kill prey, they use their well documented strangulation or suffocation techniques. But when lions try to kill *each other* they use an entirely different attack, that is, they try to bite out their opponent's lower spine, just above the sacrum.
Structurally this is the weakness point in any quadruped. This also extrapolates very well in defending oneself or others from large, aggressive canines. Strike the dog not on the head, but just above the hips. Though this works best if you're not the subject of the attack, due to orientation issues. Dog's heads are *designed* to take damage as they attack things with their faces for a living. Their lumbar vertebra? Not so much.
And if you absolutely have to...
Keep in mind a dog's lower jaw has a very, very low tolerance for rotational torque. It will easily dislocate if you grab and twist it. A good friend of mine was attacked by a full grown great dane and only suffered minor injury to his hand employing that technique. Most dogs have nothing left after you disable their jaw.
Anywho, back to fish.
So I owned a tire track for close to 20 years. Her name was Snoots, due to spiny eels having prehensile or at least highly mobile noses. With three flaps like flower petals around their nostrils.
The majority of spiny eels are what I used to refer to as "gentleman predators" Not very territorial at all and seldom molest things that don't fit in their mouths. Conversely spiny eels of any size won't tolerate being bullied and have a very direct way of dealing with aggressors.
There are a lot of African catfish roughly 8 to 12 inches in length in the aquarium trade. Some look very similar to each other but have very different habits, but also, due to their intelligence some can be driven "rogue" by bad or neglectful fishkeepers. I was trying to rehabilitate a bad catfish at home, which I had done before, but this cat started picking on Snoots. After the third good bite on the end of her tail in as many hours Snoots had had enough. Waited for an opportune moment, extended from her den and bit out the catfishes vent!
Turns out, from conversations with Dr. Sanchez, this is an invariably lethal insult. With death resulting from the inability to maintain osmotic balance. In around four hours in most cases.
Probably hurts a lot too.
And after I started watching for it at work I saw a couple of other cases, after the fact. Had to have a talk with the younger employees about who goes in with who after that.
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