What do fishhook water fleas look like?
Appearance. Spiny waterfleas are microscopic animals, also known as zooplankton, that live in open water. Adults range from one-quarter to five-eighths inches long, and are opaque in color. They have a single long tail with one to four spines and have one large, distinctive black eyespot.
What is a fishhook water flea?
Cercopagis pengoi, known in North America as the “fishhook water flea,” is an aggressive, predatory zooplankton that preys on smaller zooplankton. It belongs to the same family as Bythotrephes (Cercopagididae), and, like Bythotrephes, has a long caudal process (“tail”) with up to three pairs of barbs near its end.
Where is the fishhook water flea from?
Eurasia
Native to Eurasia, the fishhook waterflea arrived in the Great Lakes in ballast water in the 1980s, and has since spread to other waterbodies. They feed on tiny crustaceans and other zooplankton that provide food for native species.
What does a water flea do?
Apart from a few predatory forms, water fleas feed on microscopic particles of organic matter, which they filter from the water with specialized thoracic limbs. They in turn are eaten by fish. Certain water fleas provide, for example, the basic food of nearly all commercial fishes of the Great Lakes of North America.
Are crayfish invasive?
What are they? Rusty crayfish (Orconectes rusticus) are a species of freshwater crustacean that are native to the southern U.S. they are, however, invasive in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and it is suspected that they were transported and released by anglers who were using them as bait.
When was the fishhook water flea introduced?
pengoi is native to the Ponto-Aralo-Caspian Basin. It has become invasive in eastern Europe, the Baltic Sea and the Great Lakes of North America. The species was first time noted as invasive in the Tsimlyansk Reservoir in Russia in 1970 (Glamazda, 1971).
Is a water flea an insect?
Daphnia or daphnids are commonly called water fleas because of their jerky or jumping swimming style (although fleas are insects and thus these two groups are only very distantly related as being arthropods).
What is the niche of a water flea?
They play a very important role in the food web by maintaining levels of algae and bacteria and also providing a food source for many fish. Daphnia pulex share their habitat with many other aquatic animalia, fungi, bacteria, and protists as long as it is in fresh water.
What did crayfish evolve from?
The genome helps explain how this asexual crustacean has gone from a new species that arose from the German pet trade just two decades ago to a potent invasive species in Madagascar.
What does a rusty crayfish look like?
Rusty crayfish are 3-5 inches long, with a grayish-green body and easily-identifiable reddish fingerprint-like spots on each side of the body just in front of the tail. If you find a rusty crayfish, or catch one in a trap, take a photo of it and either return it to the water or kill it.
Where are spiny and fishhook water fleas?
It is not known to be anywhere else in Canada, but has been found in inland lakes of American states that border the Great Lakes. The fishhook waterflea is established in lakes Ontario, Erie and Michigan, as well as some inland lakes in upstate New York.
What do native water fleas eat?
zooplankton
Environmental Impact. Spiny waterfleas eat smaller, native zooplankton that are important food for both small crustaceans and native fish such as perch. In some lakes, they have eliminated native zooplankton from the food chain, causing serious declines in native fish populations.
What is the history of the fishhook water flea?
The fishhook water flea arrived in the United States via ballast water in ships traveling from Eurasia, and was discovered in Lake Ontario in 1998.
What is the difference between a spiny and fishhook water flea?
However, unlike these other crustaceans, the spiny and fishhook water fleas are very small creatures known as zooplankton. The fishhook water flea closely resembles the spiny water flea.
How do fish hook water fleas affect the ecosystem?
Fishhook water fleas can decrease the biodiversity in an ecosystem by consuming and eliminating the native plankton species. This may lead to a decrease in populations of young fish, as they prey upon the same plankton eaten by the fishhook water flea.
How do you get rid of a fishhook water flea?
Once in a body of water, the fishhook water flea is almost impossible to eradicate. Inspect and remove aquatic plants, animals, and mud from the boat and equipment before leaving the boat launch. Drain water from your boat and equipment before leaving the boat launch.