Existing comment:
Underwater Chain of Life:
Since water in Montezuma Well is charged with carbon dioxide (CO2), gill-breathing fish can not survive: instead, an aquatic community of several unique species -- each dependent on the other -- has evolved.
By day, small floating plants -- algae -- manufacture food from light energy and the rich supply of carbon dioxide. Tiny, shrimplike animals -- amphipods -- feed by combing algae cells through appendages below their mouths.
Leeches, living by day in the bottom of the well, rise at night and, searching with the sensory hairs of their bodies, gulp large quantities of the small amphipods. Night-swimming water scorpions also make evening meals of the shrimplike creatures.
More familiar turtles and muskrats live around the well, and at dawn and dusk you might see squirrels, foxes, skunks, raccoons and snakes coming to feed. In winter, look for black-headed Canadian geese, green-winged teals and mallards. |