Vertebrates but not birds

Two dachshunds riding in a two-story pram. "Taking your dogs for a walk" usually means placing a leash on them and heading out for a stroll.  However, I have noticed that this maxim can be distorted to mean just having dogs with you while walking.  The entire construct of walking a dog has vanished in some situations; ergo its purpose no longer holds the same merit.  The general idea is to give the beasts some exercise, not put them on display in a two-tiered jalopy.  On the other hand, we have two adorable pooches being treated like royalty and get to enjoy fresh air and some socialization without the risk of getting dirty, picking up fleas, or stepping in something altogether disgusting.  They certainly caught my eye.  The canine comrades feel safe and secure inside their enclosures, keeping barking and panic attacks at bay.  Also, the environment benefits as they can't mark, deposit their excrement in unsightly places, or chase any nearby wi...

A stickleback that died because of low oxygen conditions from summer kill. The fish you see is a stickleback; it is a kind of minnow that forms an important part of the food web.  They never get very big.  The one you see here is an adult and is maybe two to three inches long.  These fish are consumed by larger fish species such as trout and perch, by birds such as herons and kingfishers, and even by insects such as giant waterbugs and water scorpions.  I found this little guy floating on the top of an Alberta lake.  One by itself would not be an issue, but there were dozens of them, all within a very small area.  I am sure there would have been many hundreds if I took the time to peruse more of the shallows.  They all died at about the same time, not from age or because they reproduced, but because of something called summer kill. A lake has a natural cycle of nutrient flow.  Those nutrients are taken up by plants which are then passed al...

The American Bullfrog.  A terror among us. An invasive species is defined as a non-native organism that does significant harm to the environment it has been introduced to.  What damage can a frog do, after all, it's just a frog, right?  Bullfrogs are originally from eastern North America.  They never made it past the prairies before man showed up due to the deep cold and lack of wetlands.  Bullfrogs were easy to raise, and people had an affinity for their legs.  Young bullfrogs in the form of tadpoles could also be moved unknowingly if they happened to get trapped in a live shipment of fish; upon arrival, they were released by people who wished to treat them humanely.  Then there were those that obtained bullfrogs for the purpose of intentionally releasing them into the wild, hoping to later harvest them for themselves or the restaurant industry. Whatever the reason, they have been introduced into many aquatic ecosystems where they never previo...