Sharks!!?? Nope!

LAKE STURGEON spawning below a dam in Wisconsin! FINtastic video of these living fossils from Amy Cottrell!

📹Amy Cottrell (with permission)

An experiment that highlights the importance of ecoevolutionary experience in mediating invader impact. Here, exposing Australian lizards to newly hatched cane toads teaches lizards to avoid toxic toads as prey, but without lizard mortality in the process. science.org/content/articl…

The city pond box. #flyfishing

Bitterbrush is like candy for mule deer & pronghorn. Kangaroo rats & other rodents eat its leaves and seeds.

It’s blooming now in sagebrush country, not as showy as wildflowers but so important for wildlife.

Bluegills & balsamroot.

Blooms in the Boise Foothills.

A remarkable young Northwestern Salamander (Ambystoma gracile) from a magical rainforest waterfall amphitheater nestled deep in the heart of the Cascade Mountains.

I can get really focused on fishing. But it’s good to take in the surroundings.

Morel of the story: it pays to take time to stop and smell the fungi.

Mongolia has to be in my top 5 countries to see the wildlife of.

Random fun question: which countries do you want to explore for wildlife someday?

That moment when the afternoon flyfishing outing turns into a mushroom hunt.

A pumpkinseed to start off the pond flyfishing season.

'(Muskrats) help the world come to life, even if we don’t readily notice them doing so; their diminishment would reverberate far beyond them.'

A Brandon Keim/Hakai Magazine feature on semiaquatic rodents accompanied by Sarah M. Gilman art?! Clickclickclick.

hakaimagazine.com/features/the-m…

“Longnose gars are among the oldest freshwater fish—it's about time you caught one with fly tackle” Fly Fisherman

Chasing Chainmail: Targeting Gar with Rope Flies flyfisherman.com/editorial/fly-…

This attractive duck with a large, spoon-shaped bill is a male Northern Shoveler. Note the emerald-green head, similar to that of a drake mallard. But the colors of the breasts and bellies of the two species are opposite each other.

An excellent (I would even say 'classic') study that teased apart the respective impacts of invasion & habitat degradation on native species. It revealed that invasive fishes are the drivers (rather than passengers) of biodiversity loss in a large river basin.

Collaborative conservation efforts keep lake sturgeon off the endangered species list fws.gov/press-release/…

via USFWS Fisheries @USFWS

Rainbow connection.

Happy Earth Day to all my Earth-loving friends here, and everywhere!! Thanks for all you do every day to help our planet be more sustainable, equitable, and biodiverse !! May our future be green, healthy, and prosperous for ALL !! #EarthDay2024 🌍

Largescale suckers.

Another study showing how old some native fishes can get. In this case, freshwater drum in Kansas reservoirs can live up to at least 42 years.

Drum are hosts for baby native mussels and consume non-native ones. Yet harvest limits for drum in almost every state is 'unlimited'.