The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note of any observations you have made of the world around you. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds and/or flowers. All are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
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What's this? See below for the answer.
I'm fortunate enough to live in an enlightened neighborhood that spends a substantial portion of our fairly small association fee on maintaining a dock that gives all the residents a place to look over and down into Lake Jackson.
In the winter my wife and primarily go there to look at birds but many of the water birds have now left for the summer. In replacement are an abundance of other aquatic creatures.
Southern Toad encountered on walk to the dock. This and all other pictures are light boxed, click for a larger image.
A few birds remain - all will be heading north to breed (American Coot, pair of Blue-winged Teal, Greater(?) Yellowlegs. Note the dark conditions - it has been very overcast.
The picture at the top shows a dark mass in the water with a trail of bubbles on the surface leading to it. The mass moved slowly across the bottom, heading more or less directly away from me.
That picture was taken yesterday. Here is another picture from today.
Can you see the fish in the lower left part of the screen? It's head is barely visible. It is a male bowfin, Amia calva and the black mass is it's fry ball. In other words, baby bowfin. The remaining photos have been enhanced so that the underwater features show up more distinctly although this results in some strange colors above the surface.
Bowfin are sizable freshwater fish reaching lengths over 3 feet (this one was about 2 feet I estimate). They are native to the eastern U.S. and southeastern Canada and are a sort of 'living fossil' being the only living representative of their order. They are generalist predators and are usually found in fairly shallow water.
Bowfin are just a single example of the extraordinary richness of the North American fauna of 'primitive' freshwater fishes. The word primitive is in quotes because biologists don't like to use it. It implies that the organisms given that epithet are somehow not as evolved as others and implies a directionality to evolution. In this case we are referring to groups that fall outside of the main fish evolutionary radiation and have persisted fairly unchanged for long periods. In North America we have the bowfin (1 species, order is only found in North America), Gar (4 species in North America plus 1 each in Cuba and Central America), Paddlefish (1 species in North America and a second, possibly extinct in China), and Sturgeon (many species in North America and Eurasia).
The bowfin exhibits an interesting trait that is widespread in fishes, exclusive male parental care. Other familiar North American examples include almost all members of the bass/sunfish family and at least some North American catfish species. Male bowfin build nest in the mud and then fertilize the eggs that females deposit in the nests. They then protect the eggs and young from predators for some time. There are also fishes with biparental care (e.g. cichlids) and other with female only care. However male only parental care is the most common mode in fishes with parental care which is very different from other vertebrates.
The red mark on the side of this male is an injury at the base of his right pectoral fin. It doesn't appear too serious and it was actually a useful landmark to find him in the water.
I did see some evidence of parental care in another fish species although I didn;t get a good enough look to make any definite statement.
Yesterday there was an area with many small fish in a tight group coming to the surface. The first photo shows the surface disturbance, the second is an extreme crop showing the baby fish.
They aren't the same color as the bowfin fry nor were they as tightly clumped. There was a large fish in the area. I saw vegetation move several times and I got a brief glimpse of a tail fin once.
"Green Diary Rescue" is Back!
After a hiatus of over 1 1/2 years, Meteor Blades has revived his excellent series. As MB explained, this weekly diary is a "round-up with excerpts and links... of the hard work so many Kossacks put into bringing matters of environmental concern to the community... I'll be starting out with some commentary of my own on an issue related to the environment, a word I take in its broadest meaning."
"Green Diary Rescue" will be posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.