Monday, October 31, 2005

The Tasty Snack That Smiles Right Back...*

The Cape Times is reporting that someone found a whole slew of goldfish (Carassius auratus) in a stream in South Africa's Table Mountain National Park. There are at least 100 of them, and no one seems to know how they got there. Biologists seem conflicted about the seriousness of the situation, with one claiming the bright red fish would soon be food for predators, and another worrying that they could form breeding populations. Luckily, a decision has been made: the fish are being removed from the stream on this very day. Bonus points to the Cape Times for using the fish's scientific name.

*(until you bite their heads off!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Goldfish aren't always bright red, of course. They do excellent muddy browns, which seems like something a predator might not notice. A goldfish's color starts out brown, and may change over its life as a function of habitat and nutrition, but especially seems to depend on how much light they get.
Plus, uh, are we assuming there are major classes of predators in the area with color vision?

Best to remove them, yes.