Food Habits
P. velox is a nocturnal predator, hunting primarily by touch and scent in and around calm pools . Each dive lasts only seconds . It searches both within the pool and along the bank for prey using the sensitive vibrissae and odor and apparently not eyesight . It prefers areas that have cover to retreat to when it feels threatened . P. velox attacks prey using sharp bites, sometimes pinning the prey with its fore feet, and flipping crabs over to attack the weaker ventral surface they usually avoid crabs larger than 7 cm across . The prey preference varies among individuals; some prefer crabs; others, frogs, or even fish. Frogs are eaten headfirst and fish are pulled apart into manageable bits. Prey is consumed on the bank. They also eat insects, mollusks, and freshwater prawns . In captivity eats 15– 20 crabs per night. Diet includes amphibians, fish, insects, terrestrial non-insect arthropods, mollusks
Read more about this topic: Giant Otter Shrew
Famous quotes containing the words food and/or habits:
“Thought product and food product are to me
Nothing compared to the producing of them.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“As men’s habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits.”
—Baruch (Benedict)