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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the April 22, 2012 Newsletter issued from the woods of the Loess Hill Region a few miles east of Natchez, Mississippi, USA
BABY CATFISH GULPING AIR
In a drainage ditch along a levee road in the Refuge an inky, car-wheel-sized school of baby catfish swam up the ditch. As a group they'd move underwater maybe half a minute, then they'd surface for maybe another half minute, constantly poking their heads out of the water for half a second, again and again, apparently gulping air. As a kid on the farm in Kentucky I'd seen this many times in our pond so it's just something baby catfish do.
You can see heads sticking from the water and note how they stirred up the water as their school went along above.