Diet and Feeding Behavior
Sand shiners are omnivorous fish, feeding on aquatic and terrestrial insects, bottom ooze and diatoms and are often observed in large schools which frequently feeding in shallow waters. Overall, this species is an opportunistic feeder primarily taking bottom particulate matter, as well as plant material and terrestrial and aquatic insects. More explicitly, their summer diet consists of bottom ooze (68% of volume), aqatic nymphs and larvae, Ephemeroptera nymphs, Tricoptera larvae, adult terrestrial insects, adult and emerging Ephemeroptera, dipterans, corixids, and a small amount of plant matter. During late summer, sand shiners show more surface-oriented feeding behaviors, feeding on adult aquatic and terrestrial insects. These feeding habits are similar to the closely related Cape Fear shiner and swallowtail shiner.
Read more about this topic: Sand Shiner
Famous quotes containing the words diet, feeding and/or behavior:
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously, browsing both stalk and leaves; but I shall perhaps be enabled to speak with more precision and authority by and by,—if philosophy and sentiment are not buried under a multitude of details.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The confusion of emotions with behavior causes no end of unnecessary trouble to both adults and children. Behavior can be commanded; emotions can’t. An adult can put controls on a child’s behavior—at least part of the time—but how do you put controls on what a child feels? An adult can impose controls on his own behavior—if he’s grown up—but how does he order what he feels?”
—Leontine Young (20th century)