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A monthly podcast in which Stuart Carlton (a native New Orleanian) asks smart people to teach him about the Great Lakes. Co-hosted by the awesome staff at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.
[Stuart Carlton]
That's right everybody, it is Ask Dr. Fish, your monthly live stream in which we answer your fish questions, your science questions, and your life questions. My name is Stuart Carlton and I'm running solo today on the back end because Megan the lake lover gun is on assignment. But she also left her jacket in my office.
I'm wearing her jacket, her safety field jacket. So I am safe here. I shall not be deer hunted in this room, unless it's a deer hunter situation with Russian roulette.
But I'm feeling, I'm not feeling lucky today. So probably not. Anyway, we're joined today by not one, but two Drs. Fish. I can't remember who I introduced first last month. So this month we're going to start with Titus Seilheimer, Wisconsin Sea Grant.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Good morning, everyone. Happy May the 4th. And yeah, my my Jedi name is Titus Seilheimer.
And I'm the, I was trying to think of something fun with that. And I should have thought of that first.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, sometimes you can pregame these. You don't have to, it's a thing.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I prefer to go right off the top of my head with most things. So, yeah, fishery specialist, Wisconsin Sea Grant.
[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. Yes, it is. Katie O'Reilly, Dr. Catfish, what's your Jedi name?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Well, see, I was going to go in opposite direction. I was going Sith. So it could be like, you know, Darth, Darth Fish or something.
You know, have this existential battle with Titus the Jedi. But no. Hi, everyone.
Katie O'Reilly, Aquatic Invasive Species Specialist with Illinois Indiana Sea Grant. And happy to be here on a lovely May the 4th.
[Stuart Carlton]
May the 4th. Excellent. All right.
And so we are going live now. This is Ask Dr. Fish. If you have a question for our Drs. Fish, you can put it in the chat. If you're watching live, just go ahead and paste that in or on social media, use the hashtag Ask Dr. Fish and we'll find it at some point, probably. Or you can send an email. Ask Dr. Fish at gmail.com.
All right. Topic number one. We have a bunch of topics today.
This is about zombie fish in Lake Superior. We have zombie fish. So what it is, is there a growth.
First of all, Titus, what is a zombie fish? Is that a fish that eats brains or something else?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yes, you know, it is really it's nothing, but it is it is a term for these emaciated lake trout. So they're very they're small. They're like zombies because they're not as fat as they're supposed to be.
So Sean Sitar with the Michigan DNR gave them the catchy name zombie fish. And that's why everyone's talking about them, because it was a great name.
[Stuart Carlton]
But it says here that there are growing numbers. Well, why is it that they're growing? Do we know?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
We actually don't know. There's a couple of theories that the DNR is hoping to test out by, you know, doing some collections this summer. One of them is that it's some kind of natural or natural ecological event that there's just less food available.
That's kind of, you know, the simplest answer. But we don't know that for sure. There's also thoughts that maybe it's some kind of disease that's spreading through the the population.
Maybe there's some kind of contaminants. I think it's it's still kind of up in the air, and that's definitely one of these areas where we need to collect more more specimens so that we can figure out. Because if you're seeing the visual, it is very much obvious that these are not healthy fish compared to the normal Siscowet, which is a type of lake trout, the certain form that they are.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah, it says here that they're about a third of the fat content of healthy fish. They look gaunt and they've deformed spines. This is terrible, actually.
And they look kind of grody.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Although, I mean, you know, I think I think it's interesting, too, because like these are the fish in the deepest part of Lake Superior. So the deepest Great Lake, the deepest area. And this is an area that just doesn't get sampled that much.
And I think because they have taken the effort over there in Michigan to really do these surveys like, you know, they're seeing this, but whether or not this is, is this even abnormal? Like if we've never we've never really looked in a proper way at these fish because they're so deep, like thirteen hundred feet, like it takes so much like they're setting nets on the bottom, which is just, you know, kind of mind boggling, very deep, hard to sample. And, you know, it's and I was actually at Sean's talk at the Lake Committee meeting and like I didn't leave it saying, oh, my, you know, this is a there's some emergency.
I was like, oh, OK, that's interesting. You know, there's here's a new question that we don't know the answer to. And, you know, it was kind of curious.
And then, you know, the media picked up, I think, on zombie fish as a very catchy title. And, you know, it's an interesting story. So I'm glad everyone's talking about Lake Trout.
[Stuart Carlton]
And Sean here is Sean Sitar, a fisheries biologist with the Michigan DNR. But so is it the kind of thing, Titus, where if we can, you know, they say there might be just some sort of natural ecological event that's occurring or not. Is it the kind of thing where if we continue to see this over years, it might become worrisome or what?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely it is like Siscowet at Lake Trout, which are the really fat Lake Trout, are a very important part of the kind of overall like, you know, the overall ecology of Lake Superior. Like they are very abundant because most of the lake is really deep. And, you know, why are they fat?
Like they are fat. And that's a buoyancy thing. So, you know, not only do these these zombie fish like they're super skinny, you know, hey, I need to lose weight, too.
And but if if, you know, they're they're also migrating up and down through the water column naturally like that's they kind of follow their prey. They eat a lot of kaii, which are in the whitefish family. And, you know, once they're super skinny, they actually can't do those migration.
So it like builds on top of itself. And, you know, they can't they can't follow the fish. They can't go up and down.
So, you know, it it's a it's kind of another interesting question about fish disease. So that's why we're doctors fish, because we're curious about fish and we get to learn new stuff all the time, even about, you know, things like Lake Trout.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah, and I think that one thing, you know, just to follow up on on what Titus said, Lake Trout in particular is a species that there's been a lot of work to try and get them back to their historic numbers. They were really decimated when the sea lampreys came in in the mid 20th century. And so there's been a lot of effort into stocking, into having their recovery.
And so I think that's one of the reasons, you know, again, not necessarily an alarm bell going off with this, but just some. You know, concern and wanting to get more data to understand, is this more of a natural phenomenon or something that, you know, could potentially set back the recovery that's been happening really successfully for Lake Trout?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Which, you know, you start thinking about things like, you know, viruses and like, you know, we don't know about this zombie fish or why it's happening, but then you go into the whole ecology of like fish viruses and we don't even like we're not even looking at those things like this could be a virus and who knows, like we wouldn't even know what it was or, you know, why it's happening. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's definitely a story to follow along with. We'll report back here in the future.
[Stuart Carlton]
There we go. I'm making a note. I'm not actually making a note.
Sure, I'll make one. All right. Duly noted.
But we will report back. And if you have questions, ask Dr. Fish at gmail dot com. OK, number two.
Oh, it's a recurring segment. Oh, this is so exciting. So I went away for a little bit and Megan, the lake lover gun who was on assignment, she made a recurring segments and she made themes.
I bet I was supposed to say where our theme is. Fishes of spring. I could try to say it like Megan, you know, like in a happy, joyous voice that brings people a little bit of pleasantness into their day.
But I won't. It's that we're doing fishes of spring. Our theme this month is fishes of spring.
We love to talk about that. But one of the fishes or one of the things that happens all the time in spring is spawning. But sturgeon themselves are kind of done spawning at this point in the spring is my understanding.
And so what is it that sturgeon do after spawning, Katie?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah, so, you know, once all the excitement and hubbub of spawning is over, sturgeon, like a lot of other fish that survive after spawning, are really generally wiped out. You know, it takes a lot of energy. They undergo these migrations to get to the spawning grounds.
And so generally they don't spend a ton of time hanging out at the spawning grounds afterwards. They aren't exactly, you know, doting parents on the their young, but they generally hightail it back to the lake to waters where they can feed, recover some of that energy. And I think we've mentioned this previously on Ask Dr. Fish, but they aren't always going to spawn every year. And part of that is, again, because of those energy requirements that is required. You know, they may spawn only every couple of years. So it's an effort, you know, thinking it's kind of the marathon of a fish species.
But so they need to head back and recover and get some get their energy reserves back up.
[Stuart Carlton]
That makes total sense. They've got to recover after that. And but they live, they play in a long game, right?
Sturgeon live, I mean, they're like 50 years or something like that. Is that right?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Uh, we have found some that are over 100 years old, close to 150 years old.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah. They might have spawned a solid 30 or 40 times in that 100 years.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Exactly. Yeah.
[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. That brings us into our recurring segment, which is Sturgeon News. And I have brainstormed, but not yet written a really complicated Sturgeon News theme song.
So you'll have to wait till maybe next month. Maybe not. Who knows?
This month got filled up anyway. So that brings us to Sturgeon News and our Sturgeon News story of the month is just this. It is going to be students.
It's all about students. This is from our friends at the CBC. Our students in Walpole Island, they're going to raise sturgeon at a new school based fish hatchery.
They're going to start the school year with eggs and end the year releasing fish into the wild, says a researcher. Titus, you're big in sturgeon hatching and eggs and stuff like this. Have you done school activities like these?
And what is the value of them?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah, I mean, I think this really builds. This is like, you know, it's like the trout in the classroom, but taking it to sturgeon and, you know, and they're also doing it, I would think, at a larger scale, because, hey, you know, you can grow one sturgeon, but why not grow more than one? And, yeah, you know, it is it is good.
You know, Walpole Island, that's that's like, say, Claire. Right. So, yeah.
So, you know, an area with, you know, a really pretty good sturgeon population, you know, it's shallow, lots of food for them. And it is. Yeah, I think it's a great way to really engage.
You know, like I have definitely my kids have have done the sturgeon release before. Great way to engage people and have them meet these tiny little sturgeon and, you know, to actually spend time raising them in the classroom. You know, those students are really going to connect with that and, you know, release them and kind of help the sturgeon population.
So that's that's exciting.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah, and I think, you know, in in this particular instance, they were going to engage students at different parts of the life cycle, so like younger kids would be responsible for feeding, you know, some of the older kids might get into more, you know, complicated things such as like maintaining water quality. So there's different levels that they can kind of engage the sturgeon in and tie into, you know, some of the really basic science literacy concepts. I think one thing that was also really cool about that was that, you know, you're also giving the students like an opportunity to learn about something like aquaculture, which is a potential career path that kids might not be interested in, but mostly just because they don't know that that is actually a thing that they could do.
[Stuart Carlton]
Titus, at Wisconsin Sea Grant, y'all do classroom stuff as well, right? You have this saving our sturgeon. Is this like a what?
Tell me about saving our sturgeon.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
All right. Yeah. So this is it's a great series of lessons that we've put together.
My colleagues at Wisconsin Sea Grant and the author, Becky Wojan, that kind of complement the saving our sturgeon, protecting Wisconsin's ancient fish book that came out last year. So, you know, it kind of mixes. There's art.
There's some science. We have four different lessons that you can see there. So, you know, we kind of lead people through it.
And the age range here, sixth to eighth grade. So it's the book was aimed towards middle schoolers. And then the lessons as well are for those groups.
And, you know, anatomy. We've got some kind of math, you know, population stuff, fishing, saving sturgeon. So I think it's a really neat set of lessons.
And, you know, we're hoping people use it. So, you know, connect. If you if you love sturgeon, you'll want to protect them.
So.
[Stuart Carlton]
Wonderful. And, you know, we have similar stuff, you know, growing fish, aquaponics here at Illinois, Indiana Sea Grant, I think the idea is like when you try to you want to get as much usage as you can out of the different funds you have in different projects that you have. Right.
And so we try to get some educational bits out of them in addition to the science bits and everything. And so I think that's a really cool thing about Sea Grant, not to turn this into an ad for Sea Grant, but it is a cool thing about Sea Grant. Excellent.
And here on the thing, oh, look at that. I didn't know this is what I get for not. Right.
I've broken something on the live stream. Sorry. There we go.
There's Trevor Pitcher, the director of at least to be his glider. And it looks like he's the University of Windsor's Freshwater Restoration Ecology Center, an all time great teaching about the Great Lakes guest. We had him on live at the Kildare House and he talked about all kind of fun stuff.
Oh, I forgot about that. I will put a link to that in the show notes. He had a lot to say about goby dogs, from what I remember.
So that was highly recommended. That's a teach me about the Great Lakes dot com slash ninety seven live from Iagler in Windsor, Ontario. So highly recommended there.
Excellent. Hey, you're listening to Ask Dr. Fish. This is our monthly live stream in which we take your fish questions, your science questions and your life questions.
If you have a question, one of those three types or, you know, any other kind of question, we try to cast a broad net, so to speak. Paste them in the chat live at YouTube or Facebook or go ahead and send them to ask Dr. Fish at Gmail dot com. And we actually have a lot of questions this month.
These questions come not from our listeners. Well, maybe from our listeners, but from a classroom. We went to Mr. Gensick's class from Penn High School in Mich. Oh, boy.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Mishawaka.
[Stuart Carlton]
Mishawaka. Mishawaka.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Lovely Mishawaka, Indiana.
[Stuart Carlton]
Do you know where that is? You know, Mishawaka?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah.
[Stuart Carlton]
Where's Mishawaka?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
I live. I lived in Mishawaka. It's in North.
It's it's right next to South Bend.
[Stuart Carlton]
OK, so you did you go to Mishawaka? Did you go to Penn High School? Are you an alum?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
I did not go to Penn High School. No, I only was there for graduate school.
[Stuart Carlton]
You went to Penn High School for graduate school?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Exactly. Yes.
[Stuart Carlton]
So how do you become a Dr. Fish? All right. Anyway.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Well, it all starts in Toledo. We've got to start with Katie's origin as a migratory walleye.
[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent. All right. Well, anyway, this is coming from Mishawaka, Indiana, home of Penn High School and apparently a graduate school, no, a Notre Dame graduate school.
You were Gary Lamberti, right? The legendary Gary Lamberti. All right.
Anyway, this is from Channing, Avery and Lindsay. Oh, we got a triple, triple asker here. Channing, Avery and Lindsay want to know how smart are fish?
And then my question is compared to which which one of us specifically are you asking? So we'll poke that in there. How smart are fish from these students?
Titus, how smart are fish?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I mean, yeah, they're there. Some fish are pretty smart and some aren't. It's it's a good question.
And, you know, there's been some really interesting research going on. I think goldfish actually have they can actually, you know, maneuver their way through things a lot better than we we think. You know, they can remember, remember things, remember people and they can learn, you know.
And again, you know, we're talking about lake trout before. And, you know, there's a whole range like we've got, you know, there's thousands and thousands of species. So some are, you know, more smart.
And, you know, certainly fish that are in lakes that have a lot of angling pressure will learn to be, you know, they're going to be once you've kind of bitten a hook, you might be a little more cautious in the future.
[Stuart Carlton]
So, yeah, I'm going to go back to goldfish because I thought they were famously dumb. And so you're saying that maybe that's not the case.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah, so there have actually been studies, you know, the common, you know, line is that a goldfish has a five second memory. Well, I know there was at least one study that found they could remember things up to three months, which, again, you know, might not seem impressive, you know, to us. But I think it also shows that there is a lot that we don't know about fish cognition, intelligence.
A lot of what's been done has been done in laboratory settings, which, you know, are somewhat artificial. But they do give us a chance to, you know, manipulate different environments, be able to see if fish can recognize patterns. So there is I think it's similar to, you know, our first story about why are there zombie fish?
It's it's that we know it's not necessarily that it's a new thing or that, you know, we're just figuring out fish or smurfs that we haven't really looked for. And, you know, when we think about animal intelligence. There's I mean, it sounds cliche, but there are different types of intelligence, and so, you know, we're not expecting the fish are going to be doing calculus problems, but they can recognize threats.
They might be able to recognize different shapes or people. So they're not, you know.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
They're not totally dumb either. But we haven't taught them calculus yet. So and maybe they would be.
I don't know. I mean, that is a they're probably better at it than I am.
[Stuart Carlton]
So but so how do you how do you measure fish intelligence? Like, I don't I don't even you know, what was it? So you're a lab elaborate.
You're both field kind of scientist, or at least when you're doing the science part of your job. How do you how do you measure fish intelligence?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
So I know, you know, in some cases they show fish different like shapes and then may maybe there is like a a reward for going to a certain shape. And then, you know, they do it later on with the shapes, but no reward and see if they go to the same thing. There's been studies where they've tried to understand, you know, do they you know?
Well, I think, you know, Titus brought up, you know, do they look at the shape of the fish and do they look at the shape of the fish? capture from from angling in the future and in lakes where there's been high angling pressure? So, yes.
So it's not exactly just sitting them down and having them take a test.
[Stuart Carlton]
Right. I mean, I couldn't even hold a pencil.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Fins don't allow for that.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah. But, you know, they put in their mouths and that I think you probably draw stuff.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yep. that's a they're kind of visual. Excellent.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Their hand writing is terrible but yeah.
[Stuart Carlton]
it really is all right excellent well thank you Channing Avery and Lindsey. good question we have another question man this is from a Jabri I believe I apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name but this one is solid Jabri wants to know how deep can fish go in the sea Katie what's the deepest fish you've ever seen in the sea?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Well I haven't seen it personally but a couple years ago we actually found one of the deepest fish ever and it was this crazy looking thing called a snailfish which is not gonna be winning any beauty pageants but it is well adapted for life in the deep I was found at about 27,000 feet below the surface in a trench off of Japan and that's the so far the deepest we've found of any fish species and that's probably about their limit just because it beyond that the pressure is just way too intense even for a fish like the snailfish that has these adaptations to withstand.
[Stuart Carlton]
yeah so how deep how high is Mount Everest I don't know random question do you happen to know?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
It's like 24,000ft
[Stuart Carlton]
So this is over an Everest deep. Over an Everest Deep and the fish always look weird down there right because there's no light and so they don't they don't need coloration in the same way and so any any sort of energy they invest in pigment is energy that could be better invested elsewhere but how do they how do they get down that we just watched this documentary on that submersible that blew up trying to or blew in a tragedy I shouldn't laugh yeah and so I'm thinking about traveling deep like is this how do they are these autonomous vehicles when they go that far down or is it are these um manned we probably don't say manned anymore these person crude.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah
[Stuart Carlton]
crude thank you
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
yeah I mean I don't know about this case in particular generally it is autonomous vehicles like ROVs there are some you know I'm thinking like James Cameron with his yeah crazy technology that have been able to go down you know places in Mariana's Trench but I think in terms of scientific sampling because there's so much effort involved in getting people down it can be easier to do these autonomous samplings.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
It definitely takes you're spending all your time just getting down to the bottom and then coming back up.
[Stuart Carlton]
so oh because you have to Going much more slowly and safely.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
You send a ROV down and they you know get hours and hours you can watch it on you know some of those Noah expedition ones we can watch the live feed as they drive around is really fun
[Stuart Carlton]
so no nice yeah and we have here actually we have a we have a video from Noah of a snailfish we're gonna play that for you live this one oh this was only about 1365 meters deep that's like 4,500 feet lightweight yeah I could probably free dive that but let's uh we'll play the video now only once only
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
once do it there it is and it is wig I love I actually I love this fish I like
[Stuart Carlton]
look at that face look at that thing though okay so cool so tell me about
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
this fish it's got barbels it looks like are those barbels I think those are
[Stuart Carlton]
the oh no that might be little weirdo things on the fins you can see a crab
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
there yeah I mean you know you like I you just think about the blobfish which you know has that you know that classic blobfish on the surface picture and you know like this is what they you know they look like like a fish at 1300 feet is you know gonna look different than if we brought it up to the surface so I think it is it is really cool to see these you know just the adaptations for depth pressure.
[Stuart Carlton]
yeah yeah and so some of that you're noticing is in the shape and in the fins and stuff like that what do you mean it looks different than if we brought it up to the surface
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
you know they kind of compress right Katie can
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah I was goin to say if you've ever seen like no no but if you've ever seen like the the viral picture of like a blobfish they do not look like that in the deep sea and part of that is like with the snailfish here they've actually their skin is kind of a almost gelatinous layer and that's because again they're dealing with these intense levels of pressure in the deep sea and if you bring up something that is kind of gelatinous it isn't going to lose its shape to put it lightly and so you might get something that looks very much like a pile of fish goo.
[Stuart Carlton]
oh wait yeah I've never yeah oh I see I've never seen a blobfish before yeah
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
yeah it's different than the snailfish but you know
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
same idea generally yeah.
[Stuart Carlton]
so if we brought a Blow a snailfish up it might look blob ask yeah or she thank you so fish can go. quite deep quite deep oh man where the questions keep coming this one is from Will and Will asks how long how long have fish been around this is a an excellent question how long fish been around Katie.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
so yeah I guess it depends if you get philosophical of like what actually is a fish but our best guess for when the things that would become fish started showing up were about 500 million ish years ago during what was called the Cambrian explosion and you know I know it blows your mind and you know there are actually still some fish swimming around even the Great Lakes that look kind of ancient or similar to how they would have looked kind of early on in that evolution process things like the lampreys are part of an ancient family you know lacking a true jaw you've got things like gar sturgeon both and these are all sort of sometimes called primitive fish but I think a better term is like you know they're ancient they look kind of similar to how they would have worked two millions of years ago so you know you can go back in time without having to have your time machine just by seeing some of these fish species.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
yeah I think I if you ever go to the Field Museum in Chicago they have like some of the type fossils for some of the early Gar which are like you know here's the like example of this Gar like early Gar ancestor so yeah you know I think it is really cool I think I've been talking about sturgeon a lot with that sturgeon book and sturgeon lessons and you know you know before the dinosaurs you know there were sturgeon swimming around looking you know generally like sturgeon of today like we would recommend or recognize them you know you know and they kind of made it so good to see these species.
[Stuart Carlton]
So why is it that those fish don't change your I never thought about it for you about that about the sturgeon some sharks right um why has an evolutionary pressure caused them to change over time in a substantial manner?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
I mean that is probably for an evolutionary biologist to give a better answer but I mean I think if we if we think about like what evolution is at its core it's acting upon you know many generations of a species that you know if there is some trait that helps them reproduce or be more successful at reproducing that trait is more likely to be you know passed along and so maybe in some of these cases the traits that have served them the best are the ones that have been conserved over the years and maybe there were other types of sturgeon you know that died off earlier because they did not have you know the the scoots on their back that help you know protect them from predation or they lacked you know barbels to help them sense food on the the ground and so but I mean evolution does not necessarily always just work in the perfect way it sometimes can choose for things depending on what an environment is like and so maybe you know the types of environments that these fish have been living in there hasn't been enough pressure to push them towards you know something else.
[Stuart Carlton]
sure
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
you know and it works like you know just thinking about like lampreys versus all the other fish like they you know branched off before jaws were a thing and you know they have made it work and you know in some places you know it's like in the Great Lakes we've got what five four or five different you know native lamprey species so they're still here there you know and then you know some of the examples of like you know sturgeon like sturgeon is this great like conservation story it's also a story of you know kind of a species at risk and but you know really you look at why they're at risk and it's it's really just in the last few hundred years you know over say 250 million years you know they've done pretty well and there's been ups and downs and you know here humans also may be causing some ups and downs as well to a lot of these fish species so yeah it's you know they hang on they keep going and some of them do you know some species do better some do worse that's uh that's evolution.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah and I mean just to emphasize that point Titus you know we think about the pressures that humans have put on species of all kinds but you know fish particularly for us that really is just a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of like how long some of these you know these species have been around so that that's not enough time to really on the evolutionary scale see you know a dramatic difference.
[Stuart Carlton]
That makes sense excellent all right you were listening to Dr. Fish and we're taking student questions right now from Mr. Gensick's class Penn High School in Kitty O'Reilly's beloved Mishawaka Indiana this is a good one actually I like this one a lot so different fish have different level of sensitivity right some fish are big wusses others are a little bit more rugged and so Colin Eli asked why is that specifically Titus why are trout such sensitive fish but bass aren't?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah I think a great question to kind of follow up with our how long you know how long species have been around and it is it's really a question of you know just you know comparing any two species like some will do better in one condition others will do better in others and you know in this case we're talking about like trout trout or cold water species they have you know they need clear water they need cold water and you compare that to a bass and bass are you know more of a lake species although there is also you know they're different bass species like long or largemouth bass you know are kind of more of a generalists in terms of their habitat so you can find them in Florida you can find them in Wisconsin they're all over the place you know maybe the water isn't super clear but they also like warmer water there are warm water species and you know even so even if we're just talking trout like a brook trout versus a brown trout like a brown trout is a more more tolerant type of trout compared to a brook trout which needs much colder water so even within those species there is a range of kind of habitat preferences so yeah that's you know we can compare any two species and you know one might be better in this situation one might be better in the other situation.
[Stuart Carlton]
Fantastic and now we are going on to our next question I love this rapid-fire stuff this one's one for you Dr. Catfish since you are such a former Indiana resident spent much your life there near Mishawaka here we go and this is from, let me hide that one, there we go this is from Sela. How many endangered fish are there in Indiana? Katie O'Reilly.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
This was a really good question I actually wasn't sure about and had to look up but there are actually no federally listed endangered fish species in Indiana which is to me a little wild because there are 15 species of endangered freshwater mussels but that's a whole other conversation that we could have about why mussels are so endangered but there are the state of Indiana does list some species as endangered or what they call of special concern meaning that you know there is potentially some threat to them and so there are 11 Indiana state listed endangered fish species including the Lake Sturgeon which we've talked about on this show obviously many times and we know that their numbers are down a lot because of historical overfishing the loss of habitat dams but there's also a lot of other smaller species that people might not know about including one that I think is super cool called the Hoosier cave fish.
[Stuart Carlton]
Hoosier cave fish?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Which is only found in a couple cave systems in southern Indiana and what part of the reason it's endangered and Titus can back me up on this is that you know they're not exactly lookers as Stewart's probably trying to tell you.
[Stuart Carlton]
I'm not even sure I can show the picture.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
You might have to blur it out a little bit but again this goes back to the the deep sea fish this is a fish that's evolved to live in caves where there is no if very little light not a lot of food and so it looks kind of strange but the reason it's endangered is in part because it is a species that has a relatively small specialized home range and there's some threats to like you know groundwater pumping that some of these cave systems and aquifers that it may rely on might over the over time you know get used up essentially as we continue to pump groundwater for consumption agriculture what have you.
[Stuart Carlton]
So it's just a small area where they even can exist and that's what that's yeah that's kind of thing with the Endangered Species Act that I think people don't realize. Well well first of all so these are state endangered not federally and it generally is very hard to list things federally and it's a controversial process right and right because it comes with a lot of restrictions but but from my perspective the thing that's most critical about the Endangered Species Act or getting fish listed is not so much the individual or any species it's not so much the individual species but it enables protection of habitats and things like that in ecosystems and so that's a lot of the benefit of listing something under the Endangered Species Act but it's also a lot of the controversy because it takes a lot of land out it makes it very restrictive to use the land or the cave or the water it really minimizes what you can do and so that can be a challenge.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah you know it becomes a kind of a discussion about you know what's more important in a lot of cases is it you know jobs versus this singular species that you know may not exist anymore you know without protection of things like wildlife.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yep and it often gets reduced to that right it gets reduced to this jobs versus the environment frame and then when it becomes that that's a that's really hard and be yeah anyway that's a really hard thing to do. Excellent I'm gonna stop showing those pictures some of them I apologize Mr. Gensick for showing that.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
It's a safe search off for that one.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah I mean go cave fish what else to say. Last this is most important and I'm gonna edit this question because they tried to be polite here and there's no reason for this and this is from a Jamari and Melinda and they have what I think is the critical question and maybe the main reason we do this show and that is to answer this. Titus do fish fart?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yes so I mean yes an emphatic yes they do they do you know not I not in the same way that we we fart it's kind of a.
[Stuart Carlton]
Nobody farts like you do.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I have a trophy that's not true but
[Stuart Carlton]
yes it's atrophy but regardless
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
yes yeah so they you know will actually like lots of fish will use you know like you're a fish generally they have swim bladders and that is a kind of air filled pocket within their bodies and you know some fish will will express some of that that gas to communicate they might you know they will also use that to move up and down and stay neutrally buoyant so it is you know definitely you know letting out bubbles underwater you know not just for fun but they might be actually telling each other you know different things so.
[Stuart Carlton]
We have a classic Ask Dr. Fish video about fish farting we showed it in our site review actually but I can't find that handy if I can locate it we will play it next week. Katie are you a big fish fart person?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Oh huge fish fart person I think this is a great question and you know and there's I think a bigger part of it too beyond you know the just funness of fish farting is that there is a whole world of audible communication among fish underwater that we are just beginning to explore kind of this idea of soundscapes or like what does the underwater world sound like it can be everything from clicks to hums to all these different noises and they all you know may serve for going back to the evolution you know evolutionary purposes or you know there's some functional reason whether it's communicating maybe to warn about danger to attract a mate you know some species do some croaking to attract mates and part of you know part of the reason behind this is that sound travels a lot faster underwater than it does through the air and so there's a lot of opportunities for sound to be an important tool for communication that we're just beginning to explore.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah you know I would add that you know this is another example of because this is our theme hey we didn't know we didn't know this is a thing until we actually look for it and you know I think like fish sounds is definitely that type of thing like just thinking in the last decade you know burbot like burbot singing which is like them drumming their swim bladder with the muscles around it and making noise you know attracting mates there is the Sturgeon Thunder you know to return to Sturgeon themes which this is the Sturgeon time of year but that was you know something documented you know which people hadn't really looked for and you know once you start actually looking for things and then you know because it's spring and it is sucker spawning season Karen Murchie as well was out a few years ago with a really kind of high high quality like sound recorder and actually recording the sounds and you know it seems like there's even more more than just the rattling of rocks but they're you know also producing these noise and if you've ever seen like a sucker spawn like is this super like high fat like very fast vibration when they're actually doing the spawning and you know imagine that sound like if you're another fish maybe you're being attracted to that that noise that is carrying through the water so yeah you know new questions it is always fun to
[Stuart Carlton]
learn more about fish there we go and here we go it from our friends at the BBC BBC we have researchers in Germany discovered a tiny transparent fish Daniel Ellis cerebrum cerebrum so I'm not a brain scientist it produces a sound so loud it could rival a pneumatic drill you can tell this is British because it uses the word pneumatic and but up to 140 decibels and I guess they have some video here I haven't pre-screened this so hopefully it's drill sound doesn't sound profane let's give it a listen all right everybody let's fire this sucker up look at that that was kind of cool sounded cicada ask I think
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
it's fair to say that definitely yeah it had hints of cicada you know back to
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Norwegian like death metal like it's I think that's probably what it sounds
[Stuart Carlton]
like to a fish so that's probably yeah so this is only only male fish they don't know why they make this noise what happened was they had a bunch of them in an aquarium and they heard the sounds and they're like what is happening that would be really creepy actually yeah yeah that would be no good there was a while where I slept in our wet lab because there's it was between houses at the time because my what this is in grad school and my wife had moved no then girlfriend now wife had moved down to Florida to go to law school and I was still at Georgia anyway and so I was sleeping on our wet lab for a while and had that come out I would not have been sleeping in our wet lab.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
I was gonna say you don't I mean you have free white noise yeah they're like people pay good money for white noise.
[Stuart Carlton]
They do they do they do pay good money.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I'm imagining these headphones that you put on to sleep and it just has one you know a male fish on each side in this little glass bowl that you put on your head.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yes you are. You are you're listening to ask dr. fish our live monthly stream in which we take your fish questions your science questions and your life questions hey if you have a question one of those types of questions for our doctors fish just put it in the chat or send it to ask dr. fish at gmail.com and we want to thank mr. Gensick's class Penn High School of Mission Aqua nope Mishawaka Indiana I gotta go to this Mishawaka I don't know what else I owe it to the city I'm gonna go there and get a sandwich or a donut or something like that and maybe meet up with mr. Gensick's this is great thank you so much for those questions but now it is time for our ask dr. fish game and today we're gonna play a special game that we'd like to call no nothing trivia and the reason for that is that I do not know anything about fishes our doctors fish friends know roughly everything about fish approximately everything to first order of approximation anyway and so therefore I won't but I want to have a chance to win because I've got a soapbox item that I would like to talk about I actually don't so I hope I don't win but let's pretend that I do and the point is this so we're gonna ask you a trivia question and it's gonna be a numeric trivia question and the winner is the person who guesses the middle answer the middle answer so it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong nobody actually cares about that what we care about is did you guess the middle answer all right and so we're gonna go and we're gonna have we're gonna ask you a question and then you're gonna have I think 10 seconds to write down your answer because I'm looking at the sound that I'm gonna play and it is a 10 second long sound file we'll see how that goes and then you write down your answer and we will display our answers and see who see who gets the point all right so the first one is this so as you know many if not all fish have what they call a lateral line a lateral line what I want to know is this in centimeters what is the combined length of all of the lateral lines in the Great Lakes what it's a combined length in centimeters of all of the lateral lines in great in the Great Lakes you have 10 seconds and go this ticking is terrible. We're all gonna hold up our sign we're gonna hold up our sign now with what it is in 3 2 1 I got 40 million we got 1.8 trillion Titus has got lighting issues what do you got?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
250 million.
[Stuart Carlton]
250 million Titus you are a winner 250 million is the middle guess that's one point for Titus okay Titus what is a lateral line then mr.
smartypants tell us about those.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
yeah so lateral line so if you've looked at a fish from the side which is mostly how we look at fish you'll see that line that kind of runs along next to it so sometimes that lateral line can be complete sometimes it's straight sometimes it only goes partial part of the way sometimes it groups down it can be an important like thing that we're looking at and it's so it's a line of specialized cells and kind of this channel basically with these little like feelers or you know kind of sensory bundles within that within that channel and they can actually like they will detect like fine movements of water and they can actually you know it's like imagine like being able to touch things but you or you can feel someone across the room or across the swimming pool the you know the ripples they're creating but you can feel that along your side and from a distance so that's that's kind of how I I like to think about lateral lines functioning.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah and most most species of fish if not all have them it just depends like some have more highly developed lateral lateral lines than others so some might you know you might not be able to see it much and maybe they don't have as much sensing but pretty much every fish has a lateral
[Stuart Carlton]
line but when you and when you look at the fish oftentimes you see a horizontal kind of stripe is that where the lateral line is?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
So like stripes you know that's that can be a coloration thing and like so you can have a stripe that is not the lateral line but you can also you know you will see like one of those like silvery minnows like you can really see it kind of popping out.
[Stuart Carlton]
yeah so I'm zooming in on one of our sound making fish
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
oh yeah so you right there you can see that it kind of bends upward and so that's that lateral line which is you know different from the coloration which are little you know little right it's a color.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yep well so I don't see a fish with stripey's anyway good oh yes this has like those spots right so a striped bass for example that doesn't have like seven or ten lateral lines right it's got one lateral line which you can probably see well I don't know and okay excellent excellent excellent excellent lateral lines all right round two of know nothing trivia Titus is up one to nothing to nothing and it just occurred to me that we could have a three-way tie and then I don't know what we'll do I'll pick a winner based on who I like the most so pressures on all right I'm crossing out my old answer and this one we're talking about because Titus you just did a video on ephemeral ponds which we're going to talk about shortly within ephemeral ponds though there are all kind of different creatures and one of them is famously the wood frog a famous resident of ephemeral ponds according to the research that I did a funny thing about the wood frog is every winter most winters every winter they freeze so here's my question according to physiological research what percent of the water in the wood frogs body freezes in the winter what is the maximum percent that would freeze in the winter the frog could still survive and I'm going to try a new countdown this one says Apollo 11 countdown so that should be cool I mean you got 10 seconds starting now 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, all engine running, liftoff, we have a liftoff somewhat better we're still working on the technology that said we got it I am going to go right good all right in a percent basis everybody's gonna hold it up in 3, 2, 1, go I had 51% Katie had 3% Titus had 88% boom I am the winner that is a point for me all right one me one Titus oh this is a beautiful thing we have to stop Katie from winning I don't know what we're gonna do all right Titus tell me about ephemeral ponds and why did you make a video about them.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
yeah so it was so ephemeral ponds or you know ephemeral wetlands as they're also known are kind of these spring flooded so ephemeral means short-lived and you know these are like if you go into the forest in the spring you see this flooded area and it can be very important because it's going to be fish free I know we love fish but if you are a frog who wants to lay its eggs having fish around can be a bad thing because those eggs are delicious and ephemeral ponds because they are just flooded for that short amount of time can provide that aquatic habitat for those species like the wood frog like those spring peepers that you know we maybe stay stay up listening to in the spring so yeah really really kind of interesting and also very kind of sensitive habitat because you know these are the areas that aren't always you know recognized as being like important or actual wetlands you know they are not connected to a watershed directly like through a stream so a lot of times they can easily be filled in developed and then lost but you know very very important habitats.
[Stuart Carlton]
Excellent and so you have made it short which we're going to share the shorts play right away because YouTube is determined to rob us of all our attention span so I'm going to share the screen first and then then we're going to go straight to the short there and let me make sure I think you should be able to hear it and this is another time you have all these cool shorts.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah I mean this one was just me out like I just talked to a camera and then Bonnie turned it into a great video which.
[Stuart Carlton]
There we go. Bonnie Willison. Is she a Hall of Famer?
I can't remember if she's going to teach me about the Great Lakes Hall of Famer or not but even if she's not she's of the quality of a Hall of Famer. How about that? All right let's go.
Nice Titus and was that that was a big mass of frog eggs those are kind of grody. Is that your hand?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
No I don't know where she got that that was not me.
[Stuart Carlton]
Okay.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I didn't see any frog eggs but.
[Stuart Carlton]
Have you seen frog eggs before? They taste like chicken.
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
I mean they're gelatinous but delicious. It's like I like they're like it's our you know spring oysters.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Jell-O caviar.
[Stuart Carlton]
Jell-O caviar. Boy we got three or four potential titles right there. Thank you for that.
All right but now it is time for the exciting enough fun enough frippery it is time for the exciting and dramatic conclusion of our round of know-nothing trivia. The point is this a juvenile salmon they tracked him in 2025 they didn't just track any salmon though they tracked salmon that they'd exposed to cocaine. Cocaine salmon.
A relative of the cocaine sharks and the cocaine bear. And here is here's the Ask Dr. Fish know-nothing trivia question. They tracked their distance that they moved over a course of two months.
How much farther in terms of a percent basis did the fish travel the cocaine fish travel over the two-month period compared to the regular fish. And I'm going to go with a different countdown here we go. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0.
Okay that could have been a lot worse. So we're gonna express this in like a if you feel like it moved more we're gonna express it in like the hundred percent. Does that make sense?
If you feel like it moved less. So if you need to rewrite your percentage. Does that make any sense?
Percents are so hard. This is on me. I should not have done a percent question.
Look we're all professionals here. All right here we go. Hold up your paper.
Wait let me scratch off my old thing. We're gonna hold up our paper in 10 9 8 5 4 3 2 1 138 130 percent 10 percent. Oh no.
This is the stupidest idea that I've ever had. So we're gonna have a lightning round or something. Anyway do we have follow-up questions on that?
Yes we do. So the funny thing about that is this is I'm not sure why they did that. I have a feeling I know why these scientists did this but I'm not gonna say what my suspicion is.
But for some reason they decided to acquire a bunch of cocaine and give it to fish. But but fish getting exposed to drugs and pharmaceuticals is no joke isn't it Katie?
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Yeah so that's actually something we're really you know again just beginning to understand the impacts of. There's a lot of pharmaceuticals that get through wastewater treatment plants and you know it's not that fish are not just being exposed to a single thing and you know isolation like just cocaine or the you know byproduct of cocaine which was another thing these researchers measured. You know it's antidepressants, birth control, all these different types of pharmaceuticals are in this like big stew that you know fish might be swimming in.
And we are just beginning to understand what some of those impacts might be. You know in this case with this particular study it was showing that you know fish exposed to the cocaine and byproducts traveled a lot further. But we don't really know what that means kind of for their survival later on and what that could mean on more of a population level.
So there definitely is concern about pharmaceuticals in the water and how they might be affecting fish behavior, fish physiology. But staying on theme it's something that we are just beginning to dig into and really learn about.
[Stuart Carlton]
Yeah I was at the Sarah Zeck Illinois Data Sea Grant Pollution Prevention Specialist hosted an Emerging Contaminants and Environments Conference. And I went there to present remarks because I am now at a point in my career where I present remarks. And so I went and I made some remarks, not about cocaine fish, but and then I stayed for the conference.
And it was interesting someone was talking about pharmaceuticals as emerging contaminants or pollutants. And they mentioned there was a study that showed that SSRIs, which are selective serotonin RIS, R word, R word inhibitors, whatever that is. Anyway and so in like redfish or red drum in Florida and it was maybe affecting their behavior.
And they posited that it would be interesting to see what you know now that apparently half of the world is on these GLP-1s. If that might affect feeding behavior and that could be potentially a real concern. What do you think about that Titus?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Yeah I mean it's it's definitely you know I think what what I think about is you know it's not just one thing either. It's like there's going to be proximity to like these wastewater discharges where this stuff's going to be going out. It's also going to be you know it's a whole like cocktail of different drugs too and different combinations.
So you know if you add these GLP-1s and you know will they you know they you know they're not made for fish. And you know sometimes they you know these compounds will change on their ways through our bodies as well. So you know it we're not going to have a you know oh you know back to our zombie fish.
Like you know check though is Marquette Michigan using a lot of GLPs and everyone's super thin and it's causing these Siscowets to be super thin? Probably not. But if it is you heard it you heard it here first.
That's my breakthrough. I'm gonna publish that in Nature or Science.
[Stuart Carlton]
Nature or Science. Why not?
[Dr. Fish (Titus Seilheimer)]
Why not both?
[Stuart Carlton]
And when you do we'll certainly be here to talk about it on Ask Dr. Fish. Now we have a tie in know-nothing trivia which I anticipated but not when I was designing the game. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna solve this the way I solve the questions with my youth baseball team.
I will drop out as your humble host. I will drop out. But we're gonna end with a game here and this is a speed game so you better be ready.
Or at least it's a speed game with youth baseball. And that is this. Pick a number.
I'm waiting.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Are we writing this down or just say okay?
[Stuart Carlton]
You can say it. Titus has 7. Katie has 10. The number is always 40 million.
That means that Katie O'Reilly for the second month in a row is our winner. Katie that gives you 30 seconds of soapbox time. I'm not going to make you listen to Mail-Important Countdown while you give us our 30 seconds.
Instead I will put on 30 seconds of ticking. Hopefully this ticking is better than the last ticking. While I'm doing that why don't you get started.
Go ahead Katie O'Reilly.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
Well for my soapbox this month I am excited that it is May finally in the Great Lakes region. We're starting to see warmer weather. You know that means people are gonna be taking their boats out soon.
And so if you are bringing your boat back out and getting excited to get on the water just remember to always clean, drain, and dry your boat so that you're not moving any potential invasive species with you. We know that invasive species can definitely cause some damage. I was thinking of a bomb you know as the ticking was going on.
[Stuart Carlton]
Sorry got distracted by the ticking in the soapbox.
[Dr. Catfish (Katie O'Reilly)]
But yeah and we don't we don't want that bomb in our lakes, streams, and rivers. So just make sure that you're cleaning, draining, and drying your boat anytime you're moving between water bodies. And enjoy the water.
[Stuart Carlton]
And when you do enjoy the water you might come across some fish. If you have questions about those fish send it to us at AskDrFish at gmail.com. Ask Dr. Fish is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois Indiana Sea Grant, Wisconsin Sea Grant, and Gobi Dog Media. The show is produced and hosted by me Stuart Carlton, Megan the lake lover gone at least when she's here, Dr. Fish Katie O'Reilly, and Dr. Fish Titus Seilheimer. The podcast version of the show which you may be listening to right now is edited by the incomparable Sandy Svoboda. Sandra she's a professional.
Sandra Svoboda. The podcast artwork is by Ethan Kosak. View his portfolio at EthanKocak.com.
That's K-O-C-A-K. If you have questions for our Dr. Fish just send us an email at AskDrFish at gmail.com. You can use the social media hashtag AskDrFish or call our hotline at 765-496-4474.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you live on Facebook maybe and YouTube probably on the first Monday of every month. In between now and then of course if you have fish questions, science questions, or life questions just ask Dr. Fish. Now I will play the critical sound of William Ewald playing the trombone in a way that sounds like a fart.
Okay good.