Need help to ID a walking fish..

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Now THATS what I'm talkin' about!!I
I knew there had to be someone else with a skull collection out there...
I guess you're not in the phone book under "Walking Fish Skulls", huh?
That would have been too easy. You don't happen to have a pic of your skulls handy do ya? I'd love to see the rest of their structure.
--Thanks a 6.02 x 10E23!!! ( A mole of gratitude)
 
I hope Plecos walk, because these fish sure did.
It was not a single cast-off left on land. (Thats what I thought about separate live one I saw until it started walking).
These fish certainly walked to where I found the remains of 80-100 of them sheltered in a stand of trees. No one fishes behind my apt. in 30-degree weather in Florida. There was no sign of an animal eating/carrying them or a human's random toss. Plus, the fish were found 50 yards from the pond edge, not on the bank. The bodies were all well-contained in the stand of trees, with many under vegetation (as if seeking shelter) and all belly-down.
 
That's weird...I have caught several thousand plecos in Florida, but I have never seen one walk. However, I have seen ponds (especially secluded ones) with dried bodies of plecos and gars all around them. The subsistence fishermen throw them up on the bank because they are searching for tilapia and centrarchids, and they don't want the plecos/gars competing with them or preying on them.

Even if they aren't subsistence fishermen, it's technically illegal to throw the plecos back. When I did fish surveys for Myakka State Park they asked that we terminate them, which meant throwing them on shore for the crows and vultures. The same goes for all of the invasives.
 
Pomatomus;
It's good to hear from a local, I hadn't come across any information that they were plentiful here (though I'm not surprised, Fl seems to be a comfy place for non-indigenous species, but the tropicals have been having a rough time these last two Winters).
Yes, it definitely is weird, hence my scientific curiosity about the matter.... I wish I had taken a picture of them croaked en masse in the small stand of trees (~30 yards from pond & creek).
As for the laws about terminating invasives, I doubt the few locals who fish behind my apt. are aware of them or would care if they did;- the gene pool in my neighborhood is too shallow for a minnow.... :P
Do you know if one can catch Pleco in Winter and what type of bait/hook to use? I'd be glad to do the ecosystem and my dinner table a favor at the same time.
Maybe they only walk when we're not looking; they might wanna keep it their own little secret. :-)
I can't imagine a scenario where someone would catch 80+ of them, carry them to the trees and underbrush, then strategically place them all belly down completely within the confines of this little bit of shelter.
--Steve
PS- I'd really like to see a skeleton of both Pleco and Pterygoplichthys, can you think of anyplace I might contact/look who would have photos of such things? It's not like any museum or university has their reference collection online..
 
Oops, a Pleco is of the Pterygoplichthys genus..
Oh ... This was not a pond that dries up (fish/tree area is also ~8' higher elevation, it is not an area that ever sees pond water as it is higher than the nearby roadway, and there is an overflow weir as well.) The location is the Alligator Creek settling ponds between NE Coachman and (N.) Old Coachman in Clearwater. It takes the water from the Alligator Creek drainage basin and allows sediment to, well, settle, before the water moves on to drain into the bay at Safety Harbor
 
If you want to catch them, the best method is a cast net. let it sink all the way to the bottom and then pull it up. In the right spot you can get more than 10 per net!
 
That is a place skull. Ithas to be from people throwing them there.
I thought catfish at first because last year there was the incident at a stripmall in Lakeland that had them comin out of the storm drains in the parking lot. Freaked alot of people out haha.
 
I guess it's possible they were dumped. Y'all know these critters better than I and if it's definitely a Pleco, and Pleco definitely do not walk, it is the only remaining scenario. (I was probably thrown by seeing a true walking fish, with similar physiology to Pleco a couple weeks earlier)
Once you've ruled out the impossible, the remaining solution, no matter how improbable has to be the correct one.
Though I've never seen anyone fish there in the dead of a cold winter, doesn't mean it didn't happen. And even though the people who fish in my neighborhood are the type that will eat anything that does not eat them first, does not mean someone was not hauling in lots of Pleco while fishing for something else.. Dumped away from the bank in trees so the fishermen don't trip over them, and dumped live they would flop back onto their bellies and wiggle into the underbrush to expire.
That's gotta be it, thanks.
But, if I see a pleco walking you'll be the first to get the video! :-)
These are fascinating species, and after looking at all the cool setups on this site, I have an ominous feeling there's a large tank in my future....
 
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