was caterpillar house - now a fish story

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hank & Priscilla Brodkin" <hankb at theriver.com>
Subject: Re: Building or buying a caterpillar house

SNIP

> We have a fairly well balanced very small pond built for us by a
> friend.  It contains non-native mosquito fish (gambesi), and a few
> native frogs, some snails from somewhere, various water beetles, once a
> black-necked garter snake, etc.
> The frogs will eat butterflies and dragonflies and damselflies, the
> mosquito fish seem to eat eggs these odonata lay, and if the frogs
> successfully breed - these fish will eat some of the newly emerged
> tadpoles.

And the Odonta nymphs will eat the Gambusia affinis, Heterandria formosa
and other small fish.  By the way the common name of the G. affinis is
Mosquito Fish because they eat their larvae. This of course makes them a
very VALUABLE fish in keeping mosquito populations down.  Most of you
already know this.  What you may not know is that when the tiny fish of
this genus were first discovered and named they were not known to be USEFUL
to humans since they were too small to eat.  Thus the irony that Gambusia
means WORTHLESS.

Ron Gatrelle
http://www.tils-ttr.org


 
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