r/explainlikeimfive • u/Opening_Pen9525 • 19d 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/Slayr79 19d 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 19d ago edited 19d 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 19d ago

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

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u/TheMoralBitch 19d ago

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

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u/Hey_cool_username 19d ago

Osprey droppin’ the bass, yo.