2/19/08

A LITTLE WHITE FISH

Is the little mountain white fish a trout... OH YEAH... no doubt... despite lot's of people look down on them... They are close related to trout, they are sharing the same ancestor. I love them they are such a cute little fish and put you into a great fight too! And most importantly... they are the native! We should look down on those bastard brown trout when fish in the US instead... The invasive species really is detrimental to the environment in different directions... Well... this is hard decision for anglers though... even to me... I could be blind myself sometimes...

2/1/08

Trout and UV vision.

Should we tie some UV reflectance flies?

Sources: Environmental Biology of Fishes, Volume 63, Number 2, February 2002 , pp. 223-228(6)

"Most research on environmental effects of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) has focused on its potential negative consequences. However, natural UVR can also be beneficial to living organisms (e.g., vitamin D synthesis, UV vision, germicide activity). UV vision has been demonstrated in a variety of animals including several invertebrates and vertebrates. Juvenile rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, has a retinal photoreceptor, which is sensitive to UVR between 360 and 370 nm. Among other functions, UV vision has been proposed to contribute to prey detection by enhancing the contrast between the prey and its background. We performed a series of feeding experiments with juvenile rainbow trout and several zooplankters as prey. The fish were allowed to feed either under full solar radiation, or under solar radiation from which the UV component had been removed using a long-pass cut off filter. We found that the removal of UV wavelengths had no effect on the number of prey eaten or on the preference for particular food items. This is contrary to published studies reporting prey detection enhancement mediated by UV vision in rainbow trout. This disparity in the results may be due to our use of natural radiation instead of artificial UV sources, in which the visible component is poorly represented. Although our results do not disproof the presence of UV vision in juvenile rainbow trout, they do cast doubts about its significance in enhancing feeding performance in a natural light environment."