Freshwater flounder native or exotic?

[handben]

Yes, GLENFWB that's the one. Thanks guys for pointing me to more information. I will have to show this to the kids (ages 11 and 12) who dove with these in the spring basin.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Once, I believe at Manatee, we startled one...instead of swimming away along the bottom like usual, this guy swam up my arm. For several minutes, we'd tap a finger near him and he'd swim all over me. Eventually, I surfaced and even then, he stayed on my wetsuit, taking a minute or two before deciding to swim off, and quickly back down to the sandy bottom that he'd mistaken me for.

 

[ShagMan]

That's my hand in Glen's pic As Mat said, we also found these at Morrison Springs.

 

[siikik]

I'm going with "native" since I first saw these at Manatee Springs about 20 years ago...


Ken

 

[Dive-aholic]

Rob,what I saw that was real unusual just past the restricition,was a cave adapted fresh water shrimp. It had the normal white body,but the give away was the eye were pigmented,so it separated itself from the usual crayfish. I was so amazed that I almost forgot I had somebody behind me I was guiding.

I wish I had seen that, Kelly! That's pretty fascinating!

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Believe it or not, I've come across the cave shrimp on a few occassions. Once at Gopher Sink(Leon Co), once at Morrison Springs, and I've come across them on one other occassion, but can't remember off the top of my head where at.

There are also glass shrimp in OW at Promise and Go Between Sinks, but they are quite different. Far more translucent, except for the weird spotting on them.

 

[sskasser]

During a recent dive in the Little River system near Branford, I spotted several small tannish colored "flounder" shaped fish. They were about 2-4 inches long and well camoflaged against the sand. When I tried to look these fish up, I found several references to aquarium freshwater flounder. I am just wondering if these were introduced exotic species (like the plecostamus found in Alexander Springs and Blue Springs Velusia County) or is a native species. It was a neat little fish to see though in a fresh water spring system.

Any idea what happened to the plecs at Alexander? I haven't been there in a while, and was looking forward to seeing them Friday...but nary a one was found!