Unbelievable !!

[Colonialgirl]

Well, we have all heard of things falling from the Sky;

I DIDN'T SEE this fall from the sky, but there it was.

Here's the story:
We've had RAIN all day,ever since the WEE hours of the morning, heavy off and on. Well this late afternoon it had hit a "dry" spell so the dog and I walked out to the mailbox to see what ads and other "commercials" we had received.

Now we live in a rural area, down a dirt road (Like an OLD WASH BOARD at times) and there aren't any ponds near us just to clarify things.

I got the mail from the box and glanced down the road toward the neighbor's mailbox when I saw something FLOPPING from side to side on the edge of the road. I thought "That's STRANGE behavior for a Lizard" and then my curiosity got the better of me and I wandered down the 25 feet or so to see WHAT kind of lizard it was.

WOW, NOT a lizard; It was a small catfish, about 5 inches long and obviously about out of air/energy, or ??

I scooped it up and it didn't struggle but just hung there in my fingers with it's gills just barely moving.

Our ditches are full of water so I tossed the poor little critter in and it disappeared in a flash. I misspoke about no ponds, about a mile down the road, there is a "Sinkhole" pond that does have water year around and hopefully the water in the ditch will continue to flow long enough for it to reach that refuge. I wonder were the little guy got sucked up from and if the ride was exciting?

 

[pete44ru]

.

Ya gotta love the wildlife situations that we outdoors-type people run across from time to time.


.

 

[pisgah]

http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/freshwater/nonnatives/walking-catfish/

 

[GunnyGene]

Catfishnado! :wink:

 

[graygun]

grateful fish

 

[Colonialgirl]

http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/freshwater/nonnatives/walking-catfish/

NOPE DEFINITELY NOT a "Walking Catfish".
Looked kinda like a common old Bullhead, or whatever bottom feeding catfish; Maybe a "Flathead" catfish.

 

[Jimbo357mag]

I found a 'walking catfish' in a parking lot one time. The closest water (ditch) was at least 1/4 mile away. This was back in the 70's. The hard freeze we had in '78 killed most of them in South Florida that year. I haven't seen any since then. Now Iguanas are a different story.

 

[stevemb]

Family on south side of Tampa getting flooding. Another 4" of rain over night. Sections of I 75 closed. The somewhat normal late summer dry spell here in NE Ohio.

 

[AJGUNNER]

Learned a secret years ago about finding fish and water creatures far from any water. When you see the forest fire fighting crews (planes and choppers) scooping water from rivers and ponds, they often get water creatures in the bucket. They then get delivered sometimes far from any water source and often miles from where the actual fire is/was burning. When most people stumble across a crawdad shell deep in the woods a long ways from a river or creek, they often think a bird or raccoon had his lunch there---not always the case.

 

[coach]

We have an invasive species called a snakehead fish that supposedly can travel a quarter mile on land. They got loose from ponds where people released them. Now they can be found in parts of the Potomac River. The DNR says to kill any that are caught.