Amazing video of a bald eagle pursuing and catching a nutria (large aquatic rodent). Quite remarkable.
From Jerry Coyne's blog:
Alert reader James sent me this great video. Talk about exaptations: when the eagle repeatedly fails to catch a nutria in the water, it drops on top of it, and, floating in the water, swims the damn thing to shore using its wings to paddle. (Eagles obviously don’t have feet adapted for swimming, and the feet are occupied anyway.)
Nutrias (Myocaster coypus), by the way, are also called coypus, and are large aquatic rodents originally native to South America but introduced throughout the world for fur farming. It’s not clear to me if this one was alive before the eagle started dive-bombing it.
"Don't quack like a duck, soar like an eagle." - Ken Blanchard
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