What is it? fish/shrimp?

[txdon]

I found this in my fresh water pond. I have never seen these translucent, one inch, split red tail things. Can anyone identify? Thanks.

 

[Bird]

I found this in my fresh water pond. I have never seen these translucent, one inch, split red tail things. Can anyone identify? Thanks.

I don't think I've ever seen one either.

 

[DocHeb]

It appears to be of the fairy shrimp family

 

[MossRoad]

Looks scary.... Kill it with fire! :laughing:

One inch. Kinda weird looking. Front looks shrimpy but rear looks like fish tail and top fin. Maybe some kind of baby fish?

 

[polo1665]

Looks like DocHeb hit the shrimp on the head.

 

[EddieWalker]

Did you dig and stock the pond? I'm just wondering if it's one of those things that magicaly appear in a pond? or if the previous owner put it in there and you never noticed them until now? I have two species of fish in my big pond that showed up on their own that I did not put in there after digging it.

Just amazing how a pond gets new species in it!!!!

Eddie

 

[smstonypoint]

Just amazing how a pond gets new species in it!!!!

Eddie

I have heard/read (?) that waterfowl help spread aquatic species. Is this correct?

Steve

 

[bikerdib]

I have heard/read (?) that waterfowl help spread aquatic species. Is this correct?

Steve

I've heard something similar; I've heard, shoreline feeding birds will sometimes have fish eggs stick to their feet and they then transport them to another pond where they hatch and survive. Sounds reasonable.

Fairy shrimp can lay their eggs and the pond can dry up completely. The eggs lie dormant till water refills the pond. I don't know how long the eggs can lie dormant before they die though. I do know that fairy shrimp are a part of the food chain because perch will feed on them.

 

[MossRoad]

You can also get species transfer from boats, boat motors, boat trailers, bait buckets, etc... not to mention fishermen playing "stock the pond" in waters they do not own.

Also, just because I like to tell stories, when I was a little kid, we were coming home from my grandparents' cottage and it stormed so bad and rained so hard that my dad had to pull over. While we're sitting there on the side of the road, small frogs (or toads, I don't remember which they were) started landing on the windshield wipers. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them all around the car. Dad's best guess is we dodged a tornado that probably sucked up some of the surrounding swamp lands and dumped them there. Who knows how far they traveled? :confused2:

 

[forgeblast]

What does it taste like? P)

 

[txdon]

It does look like a Red Tail Fairy Shrimp. I have no idea how it got there. Eddie they are in the damed up creek by the TBN bridge. The neighbors small pond up stream often overflows and I get his fish, however because of the size of these shrimp along with the drought I would say they came by bird's feet.

Taste like chicken!

(Just kidding, were on plant-based diets)

 

[MossRoad]

(Just kidding, were on plant-based diets)

Feed them to your plants. (that's what grandpa did with his fish guts after cleaning them). :laughing:

Kinda fun to do a life survey of a stream just to see all what's in there. I want to do one on our creek with my daughter later this summer.

 

[Sabretooth]

It looks like it might be from the Matrix that thing they pulled out of Neo maybe?

Just make sure to serve it with light white if youre going to eat it

 

[scgargoyle]

It's been well documented here in FL that critters get picked up in waterspouts and get re-deposited wherever. I remember a picture in the newspaper of minnows all over someone's driveway.

 

[txdon]

Feed them to your plants. (that's what grandpa did with his fish guts after cleaning them). :laughing:

Kinda fun to do a life survey of a stream just to see all what's in there. I want to do one on our creek with my daughter later this summer.

The gully where the shrimp are is the beginning of a dry gully. It only had water in it for a couple of hours when it rained. Since I damed it up the water level fluctuates 8' and only about once a year overflows down the spillway. The shrimp were in about a foot of water and them, with a few minnows, were moved to a small pond by the house to eat mosquito larva. :licking:

 

[MossRoad]

The gully where the shrimp are is the beginning of a dry gully. It only had water in it for a couple of hours when it rained. Since I damed it up the water level fluctuates 8' and only about once a year overflows down the spillway. The shrimp were in about a foot of water and them, with a few minnows, were moved to a small pond by the house to eat mosquito larva. :licking:

That sounds like you put them to good use. I was reading a story about the housing and mortgage collapse and they said, especially in the south, there are many, many abandoned houses with swimming pools that are turning into swamps. The health departments are going around and dropping bags of mosquito fish into the pools to try to keep the mosquitoes in check.

 

[schoolsout]

I've heard something similar; I've heard, shoreline feeding birds will sometimes have fish eggs stick to their feet and they then transport them to another pond where they hatch and survive. Sounds reasonable.

My dad always told me that...not sure if it is true, but I have no reason to doubt it.

 

[Bird]

When I was a kid living out in the country at Healdton, OK, we had a "pond" that filled up every Spring when it rained, but dried up every Summer. And as it dried up, you'd always see lots of minnows and we sure didn't put them there.