Can anyone solve this mystery?

[Nightjar]

A mystery here? Hoping someone here or someone they know may be able to solve this very puzzling occurrence.
We have a 200 litre open topped drum placed under the dump line from the evaporative air conditioner. We use this water on our pot plants etc.
No other water enters this drum.
Frogs found it and we now have many little "motorbikes" hopping around our garden.
Today when I gave the remaining tadpoles a few fish flakes I noticed this tiny fish (approx 20mm) enjoying some as well. Managed to scoop it out and get these photos.
Have now put it in a with other miniature fish in separate pond.
Can anyone identify it?
Can anyone suggest how it was in this water when no other fish have ever been in this drum?
There has to be an answer, pass it around please?

 

[Greenhornet_au]

Do you have any other profiles of your 'drop in' boarder ?

Nature at its finest hey ?

Birds on roof with fish eggs attached to the feathers?
Frogs similar?

 

[goody2shoes]

Tadpole _____ frogs have laid it's eggs in the water

 

[RM Outback]

Do you have any other profiles of your 'drop in' boarder ?

Nature at its finest hey ?

Birds on roof with fish eggs attached to the feathers?
Frogs similar?

Had similar thoughts, fish eggs from birds or frogs :Y: imo there's no other plausible reason :beer:

 

[Nightjar]

Unfortunately, they are the only photo profiles.
We don't have any fish that look anything like this one.

 

[Rockhunter62]

Tadpole _____ frogs have laid it's eggs in the water

No I don't think so Goody. Pretty sure tadploes have an eel style tail not a fish type tail.

Cheers

Doug

 

[Nirvanadirt]

It's a long shot too but I've heard of distant ponds being spawned with fish from what was summed up to be a fish basically "dropping her eggs in a futile attempt to preserve her babies whilst in the beak of a bird that had taken i or eaten a rich snack of caviar instead for smoko. Apparently there's (well there is the Buxton fish farm) and plenty of fish both a creek some 40-60km? From this blokes ponds that he was setting up to be a fish smoking hobby/small scale local farmers market deal. Imagine his surprise when there's a couple of trout swimming in his pond pre spawn inoculation (or whatever the process is)
So I reckon birds have a diner by the late (your tank) were they have smoko and they dropped some of their lunch into ya water or their lunch dropped some goodies in there - might be the local cocky loo ?. Not all would survive as far as fish go from egg form esp if gone through the birds system I'd imagine? My 2

 

[Guest]

A frog or a tadpole has eaten some fish eggs and the fish egg has escaped by accident causing the egg to hatch.

 

[Moneybox]

My dad told us of fish washing down the gutters after a terrific thunder storm. The only explanation he could come up with was that they were sucked up in a water spout and dropped right there.

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/HACO32JGQz0[/video]

 

[goody2shoes]

Wonder what it will grow into,... will be interesting

 

[Nightjar]

Thanks for replies everyone.
Definitely not a tadpole.
A frog passing an egg into the water, possible when they deposited their eggs which have now grown into frogs. This is unlikely because there are no fish in neighbours yards anything like this one.

We do have many species of birds visit our garden, this is the most likely explanation. The drum would be a handy watering hole.
Just hoping the little fish survives and grows to enable identification.
Have sent the details to UWA (University of Western Australia) asking for their view.

 

[Deepseeker]

Might be a Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis), but it's a bit hard to tell without a side view. They were introduced into Australia to control Mosquitos, but like a lot of introduced animals, are now considered a pest. A friend caught some with a net in a park pond in Melbourne some years back, and kept them in a tank for a while. At first we thought they were Guppies, but once we were sure they were all mature we saw that both sexes were exactly the same in appearance, and of course male Guppies are colorful with long flowing tails. Plus, like with Guppies the females of Mosquito fish get a gravid spot near their anal fin when pregnant, and just before birth you can often see the babies eyes through the mothers stomach as she swims by.

They turn up in the strangest of places, but they are live-bearing fish not egg layers. They look a lot like a female Guppy. Same deal as egg layers though I suppose if a bird catches mum and sits up on the roof to enjoy the meal. If squeezed, live young might pop out the same as with eggs.

I'm not too familiar with Western Australia's native fish, but if native it may be a juvenile Western galaxias, or some other type of native galaxias. If so, it will probably get bigger and may eat any other small fish in a tank or pond.

 

[Nightjar]

Thanks for the detailed help Deepseeker, will have a look at the two fish you mention. If a bird delivered the fish it would have had to sit on edge of drum, it is tucked up against the wall under the eves.
Tadpoles to Motor Bike frogs images below;

 

[goody2shoes]

Oryzias latipes, the medaka or ricefish

 

[Tathradj]

There is a species of native fish over here that when they spawn,
The eggs float to the top and stick to the feathers of birds.

I will do some digging.

 

[davent]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...fall-sky-remote-Australian-town-Lajamanu.html

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03...utback-queensland-weather-phenomenon/12028868

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2016/09/the-unstoppable-fish/

https://weather.com/science/nature/news/raining-fish-queensland-winton-australia

not uncommon!

 

[silver]

I'm gunna say it started out as a dehydrated fish egg in among your fish flake food that rehydrated and continued to mature and hatch in the bottom of your 44 gallon air water tank.... much to your surprise and ours

 

[Adrian ss]

My dad told us of fish washing down the gutters after a terrific thunder storm. The only explanation he could come up with was that they were sucked up in a water spout and dropped right there.

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/HACO32JGQz0[/video]

Fantastic video. I see that the camera caught a lightning flash from the spout.

 

[Deepseeker]

Oryzias latipes

If you do Goody, you'll be made to clean it up yourself!

 

[goody2shoes]

:lol: :lol: :lol: Deepseeker