The Tarn at Albi holds a dense introduced wels population and a resident flock of feral pigeons that bathe on midstream gravel bars. A team led by Julien Cucherousset at the University of Toulouse recorded dozens of strikes in which a catfish drove itself partly out of the water, snapped at a bird, and thrashed back into the current.
Of the attacks observed, close to one in four ended with a bird taken. Stable isotope analysis of catfish tissue supported the film: some individuals carried an isotopic signature consistent with a partly terrestrial-bird diet, while others in the same reach did not, suggesting the tactic is learned or specialised rather than universal. The behaviour was published in 2012 and drew comparison with the beaching attacks of killer whales.
Whether the specialisation is transmitted socially, or simply reflects which individuals happen to occupy bird-visited bars, is not resolved.