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Posted by Douglas DuHamel Jul 12, 2008 |
For years, people in Southwest Australia have wondered how the salamander fish survives and where it disappears during the summer. This fish is only found in a small two hundred mile area of Australia.
Every year, under the torrid Australian heat, the pools dry up. As soon as the rains return, the salamander fish also returns. The answer was found when a water truck was used during the summer to flood a dried up pond. Within 20 minutes of the pond being flooded, there was thousands of fish seen swimming in the pond.
When the salamander fish feel the dry season coming on or the water level of the pond drops, they bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of the pond for a long summer hibernation. As soon as the rains appear, they wake up. The salamander fish only lives about a year, but wakes up to spawn as the rains set in.
This fish as well as many others in Australia are finely tuned to the climate and live very well in the arid conditions that they are given to live in.
There are six more species of Australian fish that get along very well with the lack of water during the dry season. A few examples are the blind cave fish, eel and the scorpion fish.