Anacondas, Love bugs, Monkeys, Water hyacinths, Parakeets, Cuban Tree Frogs, Armoured Catfish. When is the Florida Legislature going to ever come around and Ban all non-native species from coming into the state?

Your forgot about all the lionfish dropped into the Tampa Bay. There’s probably enough lionfish to actually start a viable population…

Anyway…

There are so many different species that are marketed as “common plecos” so that might be why it doesn’t fit the normal appearance. While those do look like scales, they are actually scutes, which are similar but scientifically different. Catfish do not have scales. I’m guessing since its out of the water and in the sunlight that makes them look like scales. I can’t think of a good way to explain the difference between scales and skutes. Scales are like the hair on your arms, they are not part of the skin. On the other hand skutes are made from epidermis, so skutes, I guess, for all intent and purposes, would be like hardened skin.

If that makes any sense…

As a fisherman, I can say that most states forbid goldfish for use as bait because they work very, very well. And some will certainly get off the hook and live breed another day.

alcalde, here in the uk despite the usually strict environment agency stocking laws, the normally ornamental koi variety of carp is increasingly stocked into commercial coarse fisheries for pleasure anglers. Here it quite often forms ‘hybrids’ with the more familiar king carp varieties such as mirror and common carp. I’m pretty sure they are all variant of the same species (Cyprinus carpio), originally introduced by European monks as a food source.

We also have resident populations of guppies and platies in some u.k. canals and ponds as well as goldfish and goldfish hybrids, again I assume all as a resulting offshoot of the aquarium trade!

The only other fish that didn’t seem to be affected by the sheer numbers of the armoured cats were the sucker fish, another introduced and invasive species.

Anacondas, Love bugs, monkeys, Water hyacinths, Parakeets, Cuban Tree Frogs, armoured Catfish. When is the Florida Legislature going to ever come around and Ban all non-native species from coming into the state?

Whoa! That’s just down the road from me. Its a new subdivision they stuck back in in there:( It was just a nice area of wooded land not too long ago(like a lot of John Rhodes used to be)so I wonder who released that type of fish back there? I suppose just someone who had an aquarium and an exotic fish they didn’t want anymore. Looks like it would be a challenge to clean that fish.