Morphological features that impair a predator's ability to consume a prey item may benefit individual prey; but what of features that prolong prey‐handling but do not enhance prey survival? For example, a striped eel catfish Plotosus lineatus will be fatally envenomated if struck by its specialist predator, the greater sea snake Hydrophis major. Nonetheless, the catfish typically erects long, toxic pectoral and dorsal spines that increase prey‐handling times for the snake by around eightfold. Because the catfish travel in swarms of closely‐related individuals, the delay enforced by spines may enable the victim's swarm‐mates to disperse before the snake is able to search for another meal. In keeping with that hypothesis, defensive spines tend to be longer in catfish from regions where the greater sea snake occurs, than from areas where the snake does not occur.

中文翻译：

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反捕食者策略：珊瑚cat鱼防御性刺的亲缘选择优势？

形态特征会削弱捕食者消费猎物的能力，这可能会使单个猎物受益。但是延长猎物处理但不增加猎物存活率的特征是什么？例如，如果一条条纹的鳗cat鱼Plotosus lineatus被其专业捕食者大海蛇Hydrophis撞击，将会致命地被毒死。。尽管如此，the鱼通常会竖立长而有毒的胸鳍和背脊，使蛇的捕食时间增加大约八倍。由于the鱼会在亲密关系密切的人群中游荡，因此棘刺造成的延迟可能使受害人的群体伴侣在蛇能够寻找另一顿饭之前散开。与该假设相一致，cat鱼的防御性脊椎往往来自海蛇较多的地区，而不是不存在海蛇的地区。