Meet the fathead minnow. As part of my decades long effort to create a paradise in my backyard for local bugs and critters, I’ve imported invasive “fathead” minnows.
According to Wiki, these are native to the Midwest and almost everywhere east of the Rockies.
I purchased over 100 rosy red hybrid fatheads for my backyard ponds to provide feeder fish for my recently introduced sunfish. I felt a little bad, noticing how the numbers of minnows fell rapidly from over 100 to a tight school of 30, as the sunfish preyed on them.
These minnows have a unique evolutionary property; when they are attacked, they send out chemical signals that a predator has assaulted them. This signal warns other minnows to take shelter, and it also summons a second predator, in the hope that the two predators will begin bickering and the minnow can escape.
The minnows are frisky and break into closely assembled schools and dart around the pond as if exploring. Some will even try to swim up the waterfall like a tiny salmon.
They learned to attack the store-bought food pellets by watching the larger goldfish at work.
It’s a minnow-sized Daily Bucket today!
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