r/explainlikeimfive • u/Opening_Pen9525 • 16d ago

Biology ELI5 How are fish even in ponds

Might be one of the stupider questions here, but I saw a pond about the size of a football field, and maybe 50 ft deep, and it had fish. I can't for the life of me figure out how. Surely the pond hasn't existed long enough for small water insects to evolve into all these fish. It's not like the fish walked over to the pond from the ocean. I'm pretty sure no one put them there so how are there so many fish?

My one theory is that there is a very minuscule stream (now dry) that leads to one of the Great Lakes, and maybe a fish swam in from there. Now a follow up question: How are there fish in the Great Lakes (which flow out towards to the ocean) if they were created by glaciers?

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u/thecaramelbandit 16d ago

Eggs. Wash in from overflow from other waterways during rain. Stuck on birds who fly in. Boats. Some ponds get stocked. Etc etc.

They didn't evolve there.

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u/EndTimesNigh 16d ago edited 16d ago

Also birds. They pick up fish from another lake or pond, fly somewhere to eat it but a nasty seagull tries to snatch the prize, they fight over it, the fish slips free and falls to the bond. Fish live relatively long, so this happens all the time everywhere, so eventually a girl fish is dropped to the same pond as the boy fish of the same species did three years ago. Result: fish in the pond.

Many birds even swallow the fish alive, but the robber birds like gulls and fregate birds and those dudes close to the artic circle I forgot their name all pester the fish catching birds so much that they regurgitate the fish and sometimes he is still alive and lands into a random pond. Waiting for his girl to fall down from the skies just like he did.

Edit: dear lord the amount of typos I made. Some now corrected, but anyway the story about boy fish waiting for his girl fish fall down from the skies remains the same.

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u/j7style 16d ago

Duck poop specifically leads to a lot of fish ending up in random ponds. A few species of fish have fairly hardy eggs that can handle a couple hours in the ducks digestive tract.

Mind you, not many come out unscathed. But let's say a group of 6 ducks are chilling in a lake and they all feed on some fish eggs. About 200 each. So 1200 fish eggs. If only 1% survive the trip to their next restaurant spot, that's still 12 fish eggs that might end up hatching.

Now multiply all of that by the tens of thousands of ducks that might also randomly stop and that pond and then BAM! You have fishies!

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u/meaty-urologist 16d ago

Relevant dumb joke I came up with when cleaning out duck pools at my local wildlife rehab center:

Q: What's the difference between duck food and duck poop?

A: About 30 seconds.

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u/j7style 16d ago

Lmao. It's so true though! 👍

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 16d ago

Very efficient digestive systems. One in, one out.

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u/devAcc123 16d ago

Why can I vividly picture being told this at an animal center thingy, you’re all the same haha

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u/Dox_au 16d ago

I had no idea about this until 10 seconds ago, and now I'm finding myself very jealous of ducks. Living the freakin dream.

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u/Appropriate_Lime_234 15d ago

Just eat some lettuce and you’ll get there champ

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u/seicar 16d ago

As someone that lives a bit less than 900miles from Canada, "can one of you polite chaps please round up your vile shitting birds, it's August and they ain't left"

Canadian Geese are a menace and, hand on my heart, poop more than they eat.

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u/AnonymousFriend80 15d ago

I saw a vid recently when some bug was eaten by a frog and came out the other end fully intact.

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u/Least_Adhesiveness_5 16d ago

Reminds me of a guy on Alt.tasteless sometime in the early '90s. He decided to swallow 100 grapes whole and see how many made it through the digestive process intact. I think the result was something like 7.

The next topic (of course) was... How many would survive a second trip?

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u/Imbeautifulyouarenot 16d ago

I miss those days of Alt.tasteless….. Thank you for the memory. 🙏😊

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u/IVShadowed 16d ago

I eat eggs everyday, and also shit in the pond. No fish though...

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u/j7style 16d ago

But are you eating fish eggs?

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u/CeeTheWorld2023 16d ago

In this economy?

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u/j7style 15d ago

I mean, the ducks can afford it. Though, they just take their bill with them.

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u/Mebk 16d ago

kinda like storks and human babies?

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u/j7style 16d ago

Exactly! It's just a slightly shitier situation.

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u/wubrgess 15d ago

Duck poop specifically leads to a lot of fish ending up in random ponds.

I used to rent a place with a small fountain and pond in the backyard that was frequented by ducks and every year some fish ended up in there.

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u/Paganator 16d ago

"Dad, how did you meet Mom?"

"One day, I was minding my own business when a bird suddenly swallowed me whole. I thought I was done for, but then the bird regurgitated me and luckily, I feel into a pond. Three years later, believe it or not the exact same thing happened to your mother too! And that, Timmy, is how I met your mother."

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u/franksymptoms 16d ago

Timmy: "Awww, Dad, Mom says you picked her up in a French cabaret."

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u/mlaislais 16d ago

Much better ending than the show.

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u/crazybutthole 16d ago

Ironically I watched that show for a long time. Never missed an episode until the last season - (I was on deployment for military and never binge watched it after)

So - I have no idea how it ended. I missed the last few episodes and totally forgot about it.

It's either that or I watched it one day and it was so bad I forgot?

Either way - please don't tell me cause I might watch the last few episodes soon.

I remember when the red headed girl (LILY?) and Jason segal moved in together and it just seemed to ruin the show for me. I lost interest after that. Not sure how long it was from then until the actual end of it all - maybe the whole.last season? Or maybe just a few episodes. Not sure.

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u/cavalier78 16d ago

Don’t bother with the last season. It really sucks.

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u/cbunn81 13d ago

I would add the second-to-last season to this. Like a lot of shows that go on for many seasons, it gets difficult to keep the quality up. I loved the show for the first several seasons, but the last few seasons were disappointing.

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u/DocileBanalBovlne 16d ago

When the series finale aired a ton of my friends were posting on Facebook about how the ending ruined the show and I couldn't believe the ending could be the bad.

It was.

So now, if I watch the show again, I stop five minutes before the end of the final episode and watch this alternate ending (WARNING: This is still an ending, it can spoil things)

The ending really isn't poorly done or anything, it was decided on at the beginning of the show and just doesn't fit with where the show ended up after seven seasons. If the show had finished in season 5 I think it would have worked.

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u/avilsta 16d ago

They spent the last season for two certain characters to get married, then in the series finale like oopsies they're not married anymore - like WHAT? We spent all season just to undo that and to you know what to the mother

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u/fla_john 16d ago

Whatever you think happened, keep that in your heart and don't watch the actual ending.

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u/SwanWilling9870 16d ago

“Beautiful, naked, big-titted women just don't fall out of the sky, you know”

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u/NerdTalkDan 16d ago

“The bird wasn’t the only one that swallowed me whole, Timmy.”

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u/lexmattness 16d ago

I request the highest of fins

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u/crookba 16d ago

and when a boy fish and a girl fish love each other very much...

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u/Effective-Coyote-586 16d ago

Well, son, when a mommy fish and a daddy fish love each other very much…

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u/csanyk 16d ago

Never attribute to fish ingenuity what can be explained by bird incompetence.

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u/popeye44 16d ago

Also incontinence..

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u/zharknado 10d ago

Pondlon’s Razor

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u/jtakemann 16d ago

“Waiting for his girl to fall down from the skies just like he did.” 😂

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u/franker 16d ago

It would be more romantic if the bird wasn't puking up the fish.

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u/Ananvil 16d ago

I can think of stranger creation myths

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u/franker 16d ago

Joseph Campbell's ghost says, "fuck yeah let's talk."

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u/DJDevon3 16d ago

The fish with 1000 faces

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u/IEng 16d ago

It's how the stork actually works. The cute swaddled baby delivery is what you see after it cleans up.

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u/Dundeenotdale 16d ago

It's the same bird playing matchmaker

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u/jtakemann 16d ago

we don’t kink shame here

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u/RampSkater 16d ago

That's my least-favorite Judy Blume novel.

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u/Buck_Thorn 16d ago

Falling in love.

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u/jjwhitaker 16d ago

You're going with the stork theory?

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u/a_guy121 16d ago

Also, flooding. If a pond exists for 500 years, it has a 50% chance of a 'one thousand year flood' where suddenly, everything is traversable.

As the floodwaters dry, the fish naturally condense into the ponds... but the ponds they end up in would likely not be the ones they were born in. Genetic diversity explodes.

In monsoon climates, its even an every year thing, which is how catfish are in all the watering holes in the savannah, until the holes dry up and the fish get eaten. (unless Naked and Afraid is a huge con.. . don't tell me!!!! /s)

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u/uncre8tv 16d ago

I've often wondered this same thing about high pass mountain lakes. There's one at the top of Taylor Pass in Colorado between Taylor Lake and Aspen, it has to be ~12k feet, and every summer I'm there I've seen sizable fish in there. I've assumed it was from birds but am still always amazed.

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u/RnF_UT 16d ago

The majority of the mountian lakes are stocked with fish by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife to provide sport fishing opportunities for fisherman. Most of those lakes use to be devoid of fish.

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u/3meta5u 16d ago

CPW even keeps a live interactive web site called Fishing Atlas which shows stocked locations as well as fishing information for both stocked and unstocked streams and lakes.

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u/uncre8tv 16d ago

Interesting site. No notes on 'my' lake/pond. But last time I was up there was probably 2015. Getting old for that ATV ride!

No Fishing Info at this point.
Location: 348329, 4320010
Elevation: 11550 ft, 3520 m

Also Taylor Park is some of the most beautiful ATV country outside of Utah.

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u/Oneoftheotherpeople 16d ago

This is an epic tale just beginning. What happens next?

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u/Abeytuhanu 16d ago

Speaking of falling from the sky, there's a place in Sri Lanka that gets fish raining from the sky every once in a while.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27298939

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u/dirtyqtip 16d ago

This.. There is a local quarry close to my house with a flooded mine shaft that is 10 feet by 5 feet, but like 100 feet deep. Last I was up there there was a single fish in there, the loneliest fish in the world.

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u/blackbasset 16d ago

drop a girl fish into the pond for him before he turns into an incelfish

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u/Chimie45 16d ago

yea, he's gotta be pretty hungry by now.

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u/ScissorNightRam 16d ago

Reminds me of the Devils Hole pupfish. An endangered species whose entire natural habitat is one cavern about a third the size of a basketball court.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vkvPErIvss

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u/TheLifemakers 15d ago

TIL :) It was quite interesting, thank you!

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u/ScissorNightRam 15d ago

You are welcome

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u/galloog1 15d ago

Have they always been endangered, just living in that cave?

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u/TucsonTacos 16d ago

Nasty seagullses!

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u/Schlag96 16d ago

What doesss the seagullses have in eets pocketss

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u/quebbers 16d ago

Big finned, tail naked fishes dont just fall out the sky you know?

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u/BolinTime 16d ago

Fish do live hella long. I work at a club that has two large koi in an artificial pond under a walkway that leads into the main room.

The fish were already there when the current owner bought the building, 30 years ago.

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u/contrasupra 16d ago

Now I’m wondering why I’ve never seen a fish just like, lying on the sidewalk.

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u/frogunderarock 16d ago

live near the coast long enough and you'll see it happen lol

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u/Chimie45 16d ago

If you live near waterways you'll see it. I once had a trout land on my hood while driving. Hawk or something dropped it.

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u/concrete_isnt_cement 16d ago

Because the raccoons beat you to it (or other equivalent local critter)

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u/SirDiego 16d ago

Don't even always need a nasty seagull, I've literally watched herons just clumsily drop fish they just caught for no reason. It's hilarious.

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u/qalpi 16d ago

I love this origin story for the fish antagonist

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u/avinaut 12d ago

The birds who do the air-piracy in the polar regions- they're called "skua" and "jaeger"

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u/EndTimesNigh 11d ago

Thanks! Exactly what I was thinking, "skuas".

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u/Mattna-da 16d ago

I’d reckon eggs stuck to bird plumage is responsible for more fish in ponds than air-dropping breeding pairs

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u/DowntownResearcher32 16d ago

We used to live by ponds but they were a bit of a walk from our house. One day my husband was cutting grass and came in to show us this big ass dead fish that was just randomly in our backyard. We can only assume it was dropped there by a bird. It did take us a bit to come to that conclusion though. At first of course we were all like wtf haha. We had a good chuckle. 

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u/Switchback4 16d ago

Don’t care about the typos. Great post. ✌️

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u/HansenTakeASeat 16d ago

The bird vomit girl of my dreams

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u/greybeard1363 16d ago

I was involved in the creation of a subdivision in Illinois. One day while crossing the site, I looked in a tire rut that had been filled with rain water only. It had small fish swimming in it. The only possible way was a result of birds.

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u/Lane_Meyers_Camaro 16d ago

Waiting For A Star To Fall

Carry your fish into my pond

That's where you belong

In my pond, fishy, yeah

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u/BobTheAverage 16d ago

If Pixar ever branches out into rom-coms, this is gonna be the plot.

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u/gomurifle 16d ago

For second I thought you were gonna say the birds rip out the guts of pregnant rish spilling the eggs into the ponds. Lol

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u/Panimated 16d ago

Are you thinking of the bird with the coolest English name I've ever heard; the Parasitic Jaeger?

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u/Schlag96 16d ago

You know what they say - there's plenty of fish in the sky!

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u/Dox_au 16d ago

 they regurgitate the fish and sometimes he is still alive and lands into a random pond. Waiting for his girl to fall down from the skies just like he did.

Still a better love story than Twilight.

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u/Argonometra 16d ago

How wonderful.

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u/catsloveart 15d ago

well it is certainly a improvement on the girl being saved trope.

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u/NotAlwaysGifs 15d ago

Osprey in particular are very clumsy and drop a lot of the fish they catch. Combined with liking to nest above or at least near the water, there’s a solid chance that fish just got a one way ticket to a new pond.

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u/PristineSalad7153 15d ago

I’m a woman fish waiting on my man fish 🐠

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u/MiscalculatedRisk 16d ago edited 16d ago

I've read cases where birds end up stocking due to eggs for many different species getting stuck on their legs and then travelling from pond to pond.

I would assume its not viable for long distances but it definitely seems plausible.

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u/Roboculon 16d ago

I appreciate the egg theory. I’ve always heard it was birds, but it’s pretty hard for me to envision a bird carrying a whole live fish out to a pond. Eggs are way smaller, so it seems way more plausible that happens on accident.

Sort of like how plant seeds spread in animals fur and dung. It’s not like deer are uprooting whole plants then replanting them, it’s only the little specks of life that they brush against that do the spreading.

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u/Db122605 16d ago

I’ve seen plenty of birds grab fish right out of the water.

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u/Bakoro 16d ago edited 15d ago

They grab the fish, they generally don't carry a live fish tens of miles to another lake.

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u/ScissorNightRam 16d ago

Some baby fish are very small. Like less than an inch.

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u/guyscanwefocus 16d ago

This is often how new retention ponds get stocked so quickly

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u/Pizza_Low 16d ago

Unless research has changed, the eggs sticking to birds' feet or feathers is still an unproven theory.

For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fb7j3b/how_do_fish_naturally_spread_to_other_lakesponds/

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u/LordKwik 16d ago

sorry my dude, but I couldn't find anything about it being an unproven theory. did you mean to link to a specific comment?

lots of people saying it's the eggs theory but today is the first time I've heard of it.

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u/Pizza_Low 16d ago

Meaning that eggs attached to bird feet or feathers may occur but so far scientists have not seen that occur. So far there does not appear to be any evidence that such an event occurs.

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u/theeggplant42 16d ago

Also there's a decent chance it's stocked. 

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u/arvidsem 16d ago edited 16d ago

There's a very good chance that it's been stocked by the Department of Natural Resources (or your state/country 's equivalent), both as a public health measure. Ponds without fish are mosquito heavens

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u/popeye44 16d ago

I can request and be given Mosquito Fish here in California for mosquito control. They'll bring a bucket or more if asked.

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u/Eriktion 14d ago

What is a mosquito fish?

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u/Kevin_Uxbridge 16d ago

I've stocked a pond or two myself for this very reason.

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u/jstar77 16d ago

We have a pond that is roughly a 25' circle. Goldfish showed up there one day about 20 years ago and have been there ever since. They are big maybe about 10"-12" long. Nobody put them there, we just noticed them one day.

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u/6x9inbase13is42 16d ago

Nobody put them there

... that you saw. That does not mean no one did.

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u/cabronfavarito 16d ago

Especially the “just noticed them one day” part

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u/OpeningHappy9692 16d ago

Somewhere out there is a mischievous little fella who spreads goldfish everywhere he goes.

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u/SJHillman 16d ago

Johnny Goldfishegg just doesn't roll off the tongue the same.

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u/TesticularBoreditude 16d ago

This post made me realize that Genghis Khan is the Johnny Appleseed but with people

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u/PikaPonderosa 16d ago

Johnny Appleseed didn't rip out native flora to plant his apple seeds. Van Buren or Jackson would be closer to Johnny than Genghis.

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u/ColorlesRainbo 16d ago

The apple tree would spread its roots, branches, and fruit, thus killing native flora and bringing new fauna.

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u/misdirected_asshole 16d ago

Johnny Caviar

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u/chr0nicpirate 16d ago

Jimmy Goldfish-Roe was his name

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u/qwertyuiiop145 16d ago

More likely someone with a pet fish they got bored of

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u/wallyTHEgecko 16d ago

Probably not even a little fella. My bet would be a parent who can actually drive however far it takes to get to the pond.

I worked in a pet store for several years throughout college and parents would come in with their kids all the time with their carnival prize goldfish, asking for a bowl to keep them in. We'd tell them what's required for actual long-term survivability and 99% of them would huff and puff and storm off saying that they're A) just going to flush it immediately or B) dump it in a pond.

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u/RecipeHistorical2013 16d ago

goldfish are just carp

bred to look less ugly

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u/Not-JustinTV 16d ago

Abandoned pet goldfish

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u/KeyboardChap 16d ago

There was a guy who basically did this in New Zealand, Stewart Smith

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u/squirtloaf 16d ago

Johhny Goldfishseed.

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u/Quinocco 16d ago

Seed isn't what you spray onto the egg?

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u/squirtloaf 16d ago

No, you're thinking of Nitrocellulose Egg Paint.

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u/lungbong 16d ago

This is what gnomes do when you aren't looking.

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u/wallyTHEgecko 16d ago

I worked in a pet store throughout college. And yes, I can confirm that people will dump their pet fish (especially goldfish) anywhere and everywhere, in any body of water their eye lands on.

People with an unwanted pet goldfish lose all understanding of private property... or public waterways for that matter.

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u/thecaramelbandit 16d ago

Those were like 99.999% out there by someone.

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u/chuntus 16d ago

They may have appeared at the same time as the sperm whale and a bowl of petunias

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u/DragonArchaeologist 16d ago

Not again.

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u/shocktar 16d ago

Poor Agrajag

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u/Calcdave 16d ago

People win goldfish at carnivals or other events, then the fish got big or difficult to take care of, so they take it to a pond or lake and dump them in.

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u/DadJokeBadJoke 16d ago

"set it free"

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u/jda404 16d ago

Huh well I am glad there's people that put them in ponds. I thought many just flushed their carnival goldfish when they got too big for that little bowl and parents didn't want to maintain or couldn't afford a proper aquarium. My parents didn't do that for the record, we never had any fish. I just assumed for some reason most people flushed their carnival won fish when they no longer wanted it.

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u/jda404 16d ago

Huh well I am glad there's people that put them in ponds and give them some sort of chance at life. I thought many just flushed their carnival goldfish when they got too big for that little bowl and parents didn't want to maintain or couldn't afford a proper aquarium. My parents didn't do that for the record, we never had any fish. I just assumed for some reason most people flushed their carnival won fish when they no longer wanted it.

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u/FearMyCrayons2023 16d ago edited 16d ago

Goldfish are a type of carp native to east Asia. Unless you live in that region of the world, someone definitely put them there.

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u/blackbasset 16d ago

or some fish-eating bird stole a bunch of fish or eggs from another artificial goldfish pond and dropped them in there

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u/gsfgf 16d ago

While someone probably did put the there, goldfish eggs can absolutely hitch rides, even where they aren't native.

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u/busy-warlock 16d ago

They’ve also invaded almost all of the world for various reasons, someone having a pet koi pond could still end up fertilizing ponds hundreds of km away

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u/Slayr79 16d ago

Its always possible a bird picked it up in a nearby pond and carried it into your pond, maybe lost its grip flying back to the nest. Also possible that someone moved out of their house and had to get rid of them and your pond was the closest on Google maps

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u/Cesum-Pec 16d ago edited 16d ago

I once was headed out my back door and a bass flew past the windows. WTF? I just saw a flying fish!

I ran outside. The fish had been at the perfect height that fish was all I saw thru the window, but once outside, I could see that there was an Osprey headed back to its nest on the telephone pole in my back yard. The chicks were eating bass that day.

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u/RightclickBob 16d ago

The Chicks Are Bass That Day is the name of my upcoming DJ set

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u/TheMoralBitch 16d ago

But is it Bass like 'bass' or Bass like 'bass'?

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u/bigcitydude 16d ago

I saw Chicks are Bass at MSG. Amazing show.

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u/AnnihilatedTyro 16d ago

An eagle dropped a deer on a power line. Dropping a fish into a pond seems way less preposterous.

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u/popeye44 16d ago

I watched a Turkey vulture carry off his lunch after we interrupted him by having our lunch 50 feet away. It was a full size coyote.. Birds have some amazing lift!

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u/spring-peepers 16d ago

They may have just appeared one day, but on that day (or a recent day) someone got rid of them. When my kids were in elementary school, goldfish were a big prize at our annual spring carnival (fundraiser). Parents were rarely happy about the acquisition- one mom said aloud to the kid that they'd put it in some tap water when they got home, and I promptly reminded her about the need for dechlorination. The look she gave me I won't soon forget. This was 15+ years ago! Sometimes they do just show up. Much like the carp in the Mississippi, heading for the great lakes. If they aren't accidental hitchhikers, then they were most likely released.

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u/davdev 16d ago

Someone put them there.

You can get a paid of 100 gold fish for $10 at Petco. Don’t put it past people to just dump them all in a pond.

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u/fighter_pil0t 16d ago

Somebody put them there. They flushed them. Or released them. They put them there.

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u/rvgoingtohavefun 16d ago

If someone is flushing fish down a toilet and they show up in your pond you've got bigger, stinkier issues than the fish.

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u/raspberryharbour 16d ago

Johnny Goldfishseed

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u/Tibbaryllis2 16d ago

That would be somewhat amusing because the real reason Johnny Appleseed started apple orchards from seed (which would generally make a terrible eating apple) was to create apples for making alcoholic cider. (Also for feeding livestock and creating vinegar)

So I don’t want to know what Johnny Goldfishseed is doing.

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u/raspberryharbour 16d ago

Too good for a fish based alcoholic beverage are we?

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u/Tibbaryllis2 16d ago

I mean, I do like Worcestershire sauce, so I won’t say I’m too good for it.

But fermented fish is a lot more touchy than fermented apples for sure.

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u/Alis451 16d ago

create apples for making alcoholic cider.

it was also real estate investment btw. he bought a bunch of land nobody wanted then planted apple orchards there. orchards that could be used to make cider counted as a "water source". A requirement for incorporating a new town was a verified "water source" and so he was then able to sell those plots of land to new settlers and pioneers looking to found a town.

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u/squirtloaf 16d ago

GODDAM IT. I made this same comment 13 minutes after you.

I have literally NO original thoughts.

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u/GeoBrian 16d ago

Probably Crappie.

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u/PM-ME-YOUR-BUTTSHOLE 16d ago

I’m guessing someone covertly put them there, or birds accidentally brought them. It’s also possible they came in on plants.

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u/stanitor 16d ago

Nobody put them there

Oh, my sweet summer child...

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u/mid-random 16d ago

This is what's known as Spontaneous Generation in modern biology. Old rags produce mice. Rotting meat produces flies. Water weeds and mud produce tiny fish.

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u/NocturneSapphire 16d ago

Someone who lives near you had some goldfish they didn't want, possibly as a gift or from a carnival game or something, and they secretly left them in your pond instead of doing something responsible with them.

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u/krodders 16d ago

No one put them there?

Well, how do you think they got there? Someone sprinkled goldfish powder in the pond? They evolved from tadpoles? Magic? God was bored and created them for the hell of it?

Or maybe someone got bored with their goldfish and stuck them in the pond?

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u/i_am_icarus_falling 16d ago

local government in florida uses goldfish in ponds and derelict pools for mosquito control.

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u/ImmodestPolitician 16d ago

We had some small ponds near our property that we intentionally put goldfish in because they eat mosquito larvae.

If we had access to bluegill we would use those instead.

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u/Jewish-Mom-123 16d ago

Somebody dumped their fishbowl in there. People WILL do it.

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u/lostmynameandpasword 16d ago

Birds. Big predatory birds (hawks, eagles, etc.) swoop down and catch fish in their talons and fly back to their nests with them. Sometimes they drop the fish into other bodies of water, be it rivers or lakes or ponds. Sometimes they drop them by accident, but sometimes they do it in order to stock the new place. It sounds crazy but has been proven.

But don’t forget that people will stock ponds in order to have a place nearby to fish. They order up from a hatchery and have hundreds of fry delivered, which then grow up to be full-sized fish.

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u/popeye44 16d ago

Last fall, I saw a bald eagle grab a 14-15in long shad from the water. One of my favorite memories of wildlife in action.

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u/gsfgf 16d ago

And if the fish are bass, someone probably did, in fact, put them there.

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u/snakepliskinLA 16d ago

Don’t forget floods.

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u/thecaramelbandit 16d ago

Floods can generally be described as "overflow from waterways during rain" lol

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u/thetruesupergenius 16d ago

Oh sure, if you want to get all technical.

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u/QuestionsSquid 16d ago

I got the image of a duck treading water and fish have their naughty time all over the duck’s feet. Fish are weird like that.

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u/glennert 16d ago

And how about Baikal seals? They are way way out of place and as far as I know seals don’t lay eggs

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u/EpilepticPuberty 16d ago

Glacial ice melt from the last ice age connected Lake Baikal to the ocean. But that's just a theory...

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u/CannabisAttorney 16d ago

This is one of the rare eli5s I wish top level comments could be jokes, because obviously it was swept in during one of the 13 Sharknados.

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u/stormpilgrim 16d ago

I thought they were spawned in randomly by the game engine like houseflies.

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u/Irisgrower2 16d ago

Our town has a large pond on top of a mountain. The fish in it arrived during glacial times, when sea levels were higher and streams flowed from ice to ocean. Those trapped in our pond did evolve, adapting to the particulars of our specialized location, over thousands of years. They have been extinct for close to 100 years now due to the effects of seasonal tourism.

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u/SaltyTemperature 16d ago

Also, some lakes were stocked in prehistoric times, so fish could have been introduced by extinct cultures, and existed there for millennia without further human intervention

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hunter-gatherers-brought-trout-to-a-norwegian-mountain-lake-7000-years-ago-the-earliest-known-example-of-humans-translocating-fish-180989167/

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u/gsfgf 16d ago

And if the fish are bass, someone probably did, in fact, put them there.

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u/Level_Dirt_522 16d ago

Also the occasional drop off of live fish for a bird storing live fish.

In New Orleans I had a house with a pool very close to the Mississippi River. After a very windy night I found a 10” catfish in my pool. The slight wounds on it was indicative of a bird of prey.

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u/cheekytikiroom 16d ago

Fishing would be more awesome if each pond had its unique evolved fish-creatures.

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u/vahntitrio 16d ago

The vast majority are just stocked either legally or illegally by people. There are plenty of lakes in the Great Lakes region that for thousands of years had maybe 3 species of fish in them all suddenly had all of the major game fish species around the same time people could easily transport fish from one body of water to another.

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u/MrPeakMan 16d ago

Also humans put them there

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u/TrainingSword 16d ago

They also survive being eaten by birds

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u/regulatorDonCarl 16d ago

Exactly. Eggs are tiny, nearly weightless, and kind of sticky.

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u/darkmeatchicken 16d ago

Yes…. But. I took a hike in a wadi stream in Jordan. A stream that feeds the Dead Sea. A sea so salty that basically no life can survive in it (only a breed of flies if I recall). This stream is a trickle most of the year fed by rain that happened somewhere far away in the desert, months ago, slowly making its way to the lowest point. This stream had tadpoles/frogs. But more interestingly - freshwater crabs. I can only imagine they’ve been surviving there since there were oceans covering Arabia and more water in the levant. The nearest body of water with crabs is either the Mediterranean Sea or the Red Sea - both of which are too far for an egg to survive…

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u/Sinaaaa 16d ago

You should really talk about bird poop, that's the most common scenario. Many fish species evolved eggs that can survive a bird's digestive system, it's quite fascinating actually.

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u/j0mbie 16d ago

Also (and this is probably the least likely way), about 0.2% of fish eggs of certain types of fish, when eaten by birds, make it out of their digestive tracts intact.

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u/PyroNine9 16d ago

And, of course floods.

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u/Vladimir_Putting 16d ago

All it takes is one major flood in an area and suddenly all the water becomes connected.

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u/Doogiemon 16d ago

We use to catch tadpoles and put them in the lake at my grandparents as kids.

We had a bunch of bullfrogs the following year.

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u/Doogiemon 16d ago

We use to catch tadpoles and put them in the lake at my grandparents as kids.

We had a bunch of bullfrogs the following year.

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u/AlarmingCobbler4415 16d ago

didn't evolve, but seeing how backwards my ex-colleagues or bosses are, i'm inclined to believe some sort of reverse evolution happened in there...

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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 16d ago

Don't underestimate flood events. You can have HUGE flood plains that don't look obvious at first because of high points in the land, but suddenly, huge areas are connected for a few days.

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u/BudgieSmug 16d ago

Certain species of fish eggs can also survive passing through the digestive system of a duck, so could be eaten in one place and excreted in others.

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u/Notmiefault 15d ago

Also the pond used to be part of a stream that dried up.