Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) scuba diving underwater photography MN (107 images)

Scuba diving underwater Bluegill, or sunnies. Sunfish live amid the stems and stalks of a myriad aquatic plants in the shallows near shore where the food is plentiful and hideaways handy. The compressed circular shape, with fins positioned around thier center of mass, affords exceptional maneuverability. Works well for feeding and escaping predators. Sunfish love underwater plants. They eat snails, water fleas, copepods, aquatic worms, and larve of caddisflies, dragon flies, and mayflies. A...
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Scuba diving underwater Bluegill, or sunnies. Sunfish live amid the stems and stalks of a myriad aquatic plants in the shallows near shore where the food is plentiful and hideaways handy. The compressed circular shape, with fins positioned around thier center of mass, affords exceptional maneuverability. Works well for feeding and escaping predators. Sunfish love underwater plants. They eat snails, water fleas, copepods, aquatic worms, and larve of caddisflies, dragon flies, and mayflies. A shore without plants is a shore without sunfish. A female can carry up to 50,000 eggs. Sunfish stake out plots of lake bottom as spawning beds. The males make a bowl-like nest, and the female sunfish perfer to lay the eggs on firm sand, gravel, and small rocks. The male then guards the nest. The males will fan the nest, keeping the water current moving to maintain an oxygen supply to eggs. The moving water protects the eggs against water mold, an aquatic fungus. The males will fend off other fish looking for a meal of eggs. Once the eggs are hatched, in about three days, the males spend most of the time rounding up the young that stray, and return them to the nest.
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