Some of the creatures in the
lakes of Mountain Lakes:
Please
note:
When we
list something as “possibly native” we mean that its natural range includes
Northern New Jersey. It is hard to know
what might have been here in the swamps and ponds that existed before Mr.
Hapgood bulldozed most of our lakes into existence in the early part of the
last century.
“Bait
bucket biology” refers to the tendency of people to dump unused baitfish into
the lake at the end of the day. The
fish may be native species, non-native species, or the young of something
surprising. Some of the odd fish caught
in our lakes can only have come in this way.
Some
people take it upon themselves to dump fish in our lakes because they like that
species better than another. Besides
being illegal, it is very poor lake management. As one of our paid lake biology consultants put it, if we stocked
Muskellunge (a very popular large game fish) in Wildwood Lake, we would wind up
with one very hungry under-sized Muskellunge, and nothing else left.
Dumping
aquarium fish in our lakes can be worse.
Besides the non-native snails and plants that may travel with them, even
Goldfish, which will survive our winters, are bad for the lakes. Goldfish are related to the Common Carp, can
grow to a foot or more long, can live for a decade in the wild, and eat native
plants and the eggs of native fish.
Don’t break the law; keep aquarium fish until they die, or kill them
humanely, but don’t put them in our lakes.
Finally,
we try to keep links up to date but we do not promise that the links will be
available, useful, or screened in any way.
Web safety is your responsibility.
Largemouth
Bass –
Micropterus salmoides. Non-native,
introduced for fishing. They eat almost
any moving creature that will fit in their mouths. Most people fishing in the lakes of Mountain Lakes are looking
for bass. See the following site for an image.
Calico
Bass, Black Crappie – Pomoxis nigromaculatus.
Non-native, introduced for fishing.
A large member of the sunfish family that likes to eat small fish. Has a large but fragile mouth so handle it
gently if you catch one. See the
following site for image and information.
www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=12
Bluegill
Sunfish –
Lepomis macrochirus. Non-native,
introduced for fishing and as forage for other fish. See the following site for images.
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/bluegill.htm
Pumpkinseed
Sunfish –
Lepomis gibbosus. Possibly native. See the following site for images and
information.
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/info/pumpkinseed.cfm
Redbreast
Sunfish –
Lepomis auritus. Possibly native. See the following site for image.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/southflorida/everglades/marshes/glossary/redbreastsunfish.html
Lepomis
sunfish species are closely related and inter-breed, so it can be hard to be
sure what kind you have in hand.
Eastern
Chain Pickerel
– Esox niger. Possibly native. See the following site for image and
description. These are aggressive
ambush predators that eat small fish.
They have many sharp teeth but will bite only if you catch one and put
your hand in its mouth.
http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/fish/fishspecs/piketext.html#chainpickerel
Yellow
Perch – Perca
flavescens. Possibly native. Colorful, likes cooler water, tends to form
tight schools of fish, eats small fish and insects. See the following site for an image and other perch information.
www.canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/english/species/fish/fishpages/per_fla.htm
Brown
Bullhead Catfish
– Ameiurus nebulosus. Possibly
native. See the following site for a
picture.
http://www.nj.gov/dep/wmm/bfbm/fish/brownbullhead.jpg
Channel
Catfish have been stocked in Mountain Lakes in the distant past but should not
be present now.
Golden
Shiner -
Notemigonus crysoleucas. Possibly native, possibly
stocked by “bait bucket biology”. See
the following site for a picture.
http://www.nj.gov/dep/wmm/bfbm/fish/goldenshiner.jpg.
Goldfish – Carassius auratus. Not native to North America. Pets dumped out of fishbowls or fish tossed
in by “bait bucket biology”. Grow much
larger in lakes and are damaging to other species and vegetation. It is illegal to dump non-native species in
our lakes, or to deliberately stock native species without permission. See the following
site for an image of a Goldfish, as well as other non-native, closely related,
fish such as Carp.
www.njscuba.net/biology/fw_fishes_bottom.html
For a
brief period every Spring, there are trout in Birchwood Lake. This follows stocking for the annual “Trout
Derby” fishing contest for children.
Luckily, most of the trout are caught and taken away, since there is
little chance that they could survive a summer in any of our lakes. The most heat tolerant trout are stressed by
temperatures above 65°; our lakes significantly exceed that for months on end.
Bullfrog - Rana
catesbeiana. Native. The large frog at the edge of our lakes whose
Spring call is usually described as deep, loud, and sounding something like “da
da duum” or “jugaruum”. The following
site has a number of pictures and sound files describing bullfrogs.
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/bullfrog.htm
We also
have Green Frogs (a “twanging” call) that use the lakes. They’re smaller, and less obvious, than
Bullfrogs and have pronounced ridges down each side of their backs.
Wood
Frogs (sound
vaguely like a quacking duck) use temporary ponds to breed. They don’t use the lakes but you can hear
them calling in wet woods. (If you want
to learn more about the ecology of wetland woods, you could start by looking up
“obligate vernal pond breeder”.)
American
Toads (call is
a high trill), Spring Peepers (loud ringing chirping), and various
salamanders (no breeding call), also use the lakes in Spring. American Toads usually breed in lakes or
ponds that contain water year round. Spring
Peepers are frogs that can breed using lakes or temporary wet spots.
Snapping
Turtle - Chelydra
serpentina. Native. Large to very large turtles. Probably the only creature in our lakes that
can and will bite hard enough to seriously hurt a human. They do not attack, but will bite if you
step on them or grab them. The females
come out of the water once a year to lay eggs.
If you see one, leave it alone because it will bite to defend itself and
its bite can snap a broomstick or sever a finger. And a Snapping Turtle can move much more quickly than you
expect. The primary predator of adult
snapping turtles in Mountain Lakes is the automobile. The sites below show images of snappers.
http://www.nps.gov/wica/Turtle-Common_Snapping.htm
http://www.cortland.edu/herp/keys/images/turtles/cserpelg.jpg
Eastern
Painted Turtle
- Chrysemys picta.
Native. It grows to a shell
length of about 6”. You may see yellow
markings on the head. This is the
turtle you are most likely to see sunning itself on a rock in our lakes. If you see a turtle with a red mark on its
head, it is probably a Red-eared Slider, a non-native turtle whose ancestors
were dumped in the lake when people tired of them as pets.
http://www.dgif.state.va.us/wildlife/species/display.asp?id=030060
Northern
Water Snake - Nerodia sipedon. Native. A large example
of this snake will usually look all black and it will be swimming (hunting
fish) or trying to get to the water. Do
not grab even a small example of this snake as it has a mouthful of sharp,
backward pointing, teeth designed to hold fish, and it will have a hard time
letting go of you when it bites to make you let go of it. They can be aggressive if you corner them,
so give them space. They may look
unpleasant but THERE ARE NO POISONOUS WATER SNAKES IN MOUNTAIN LAKES, or New
Jersey for that matter. There is no
reason to kill a snake and certainly none to harm an uncommon water snake in
Mountain Lakes.
http://www.dgif.state.va.us/wildlife/species/display.asp?id=030034
Muskrat – Ondatra zibethicus. A large aquatic rodent (but much smaller than beaver) that burrows into the shores of the lakes. They eat plants, cause some damage to the shoreline, and produce many offspring, which makes the Snapping Turtles happy. The following site shows far more than you will ever need to know about muskrats.
http://my.net-link.net/~vaneselk/muskrat/
There are recipes for cooking muskrat on that Web site. To the best of our knowledge, no one on the Borough’s Lakes Management Committee has tried them.
Muskrats are harmless in the sense that they won’t bother you unless you trap them or threaten their babies. However, they don’t get out of the water to go to the bathroom, so they are one of the reasons we don’t drink lake water (They can carry Giardia, but so can dogs. http://www.hyperionlab.ca/giardia1.html)
Raccoons (Procyon lotor) hunt for freshwater mussels and crayfish from the shallows of our lakes. You may find empty “clam” shells or broken crayfish shells in the shallows or on the shore showing where they fed. (Their scientific name means something like “early dog, the washer” referring to their habit of washing their food.)
It is possible that we have an occasional Mink (Mustela vison) passing through our lakes. They eat fish, crayfish, Muskrats, and most small creatures.
This is a partial list of water creatures that are visible to the unassisted eye and don’t have backbones, including insects, crustaceans, and molluscs.
The insects commonly called dragonflies are usually larger, strong flyers, whose wings extend perpendicular to their bodies when they are resting. Their immature stage (nymph) is large, squat, and can jet forward by expelling water from openings in the rear of the body. They have extendable jaws to catch their prey.
Damselfly is the name commonly applied to more slender insects whose wings fold back over the body at rest. Other than that, they often look much like dragonflies in flight. The immature stages (nymphs) in the water usually have leaf-like gills at the end of their bodies and swim by wiggling their bodies.
Dragonfly – Common Green Darner – Anax junius
This is a big green dragonfly likely to be seen over our lakes and lawns, but is not the only dragonfly in Mountain Lakes. (As I was writing this (June, 2005) I saw three species in one hour at Birchwood Lake, plus damselflies.) For an illustration of the complexity of nature, while dragonflies are migrating, they form a food source for migrating Broadwing Hawks.
Adult:
http://www.njodes.com/Speciesaccts/darners/darn-comm.asp
Dragonfly – Common Whitetail Skimmer – Platythemis lydia
This is a fairly obvious creature with its strongly patterned wings.
Adults:
http://www.njodes.com/Speciesaccts/skimmers/whit-comm.asp
The immature insects (nymphs), dragonflies in particular, in the lakes are great hunters of small creatures, even tiny fish.
Common Green Darner Nymph:
These are relatively large insects and eat smaller creatures, including tiny fish.
http://www.umd.umich.edu/eic/aquatic_insecta/odonata/aeshnidae_family.htm
Damselfly – Variable Dancer – Argia fumipennis
One of the Damselflies you might see in Mountain Lakes. And for further confusion, newly emerged adults of a given species may be a different color than older examples and females of several species (as with Variable Dancers) are a different color than the males.
Adult:
http://www.njodes.com/Speciesaccts/damsels/danc-vari.asp
Damselfly – Familiar Bluet – Enallagama civile
Another species you might see in Mountain Lakes.
Adult:
http://www.njodes.com/Speciesaccts/damsels/blue-fami.asp
Familiar Bluet Nymph:
http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/na/aquatic_insecta/odonata/coenagrionidae_family.htm
In Mountain Lakes, ours are likely to be Procambarus
species. They look like lobsters a few
inches long. Bass love to eat these.
http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/NewAstacidea/species.asp?g=Procambarus&s=acutus&ssp=acutus
There are freshwater mussels in Mountain Lakes (and twelve native
species in New Jersey). The empty, fragile,
dark, “clam” shells you may find on the shores of the lake are likely to be
native mussels.
The following site will give you more information about molluscs in our
area than any casual reader will need.
For example, one of the mussels likely to be growing in Mountain Lakes
has to have Yellow Perch in the lake to survive. Their young must spend time as skin parasites (mostly harmless)
on Yellow Perch before they can grow to older stages. (They can’t use the skin on most other fish, much less humans or
other creatures.)
