If a pond has water, it has fish. Can fish eggs really survive for a thousand years?

Summary: Where do fish come from, and why do fish suddenly appear in a puddle?

This question brings to mind a saying the elders in my family used to repeat: "Fish eggs last a thousand years, grass seeds last ten thousand years." They said that even if a fish pond has no water, there are still fish eggs, and even if the eggs dry out for many years, they will still turn into fish once they meet water.

Can fish eggs really last a thousand years?

In fact, this phenomenon is very common in the countryside. When I was a child, there were many small streams and wild fields back home, especially low-lying puddles in the wild fields. In winter they were usually dry, with nothing at all, sometimes just a few withered reeds growing there, and no sign of fish or shrimp at all. But in summer, when more rain fell, puddles would appear. At first there were no small fish or shrimp in the puddles either, at most some aquatic insects or the like.

But after some time, small fry, tiny shrimp, and loaches and other aquatic creatures would appear, and the children loved to catch them with homemade nets. This really is quite a magical thing.

There are mainly three reasons for this

One is that the puddle is relatively close to a river or pond, and summer is rainy, so the water in rivers and ponds often overflows. At such times, the more nimble small fry swim into the puddle. This is how small fish and shrimp come to appear in the puddle.

The second reason is the fish eggs, because once there are fish in the puddle, over time they will spawn. Some fish eggs are extremely resilient and have a dormant period of their own. Once the environment is unsuitable for hatching, they enter dormancy, but the dormant period is also time-limited, and it is not like what the elders said, able to survive a thousand years without dying. For example, the eggs of the common small crucian carp in water can generally stay dormant for about one year in an unsuitable environment, and when the environment becomes suitable they hatch into small fry.

The third is through outside forces, which in fact has to do with birds and wind. Some birds prey on fish, and in the process of catching fish they may get fish eggs caught in their feathers. Sometimes when birds fly they carry the fish eggs away and scatter them in different places. If these scattered fish eggs land in a ditch, they will survive. The same is true of wind, in fact: after a fish pond dries up, the fish eggs are very light in weight and can also drift with the wind to different places.

Finally, let me explain why no fish can be found once the water dries up.

In fact, what I usually see is when the water is pumped dry. Because the water dries up all at once, there will be a lot of fish, shrimp and loaches in the mud, not "no fish to be found" as the question says.

As for why no fish can be found, I personally think it is first because the water is not pumped dry all at once, but gradually disappears. This is because as the water gets less and less, the living space for the fish gradually shrinks, and an unsuitable growing environment naturally causes many fish and shrimp to die, so by the time you go looking for fish there are not many left.

The other situation is artificially stocked fish ponds. Every year, artificially stocked fish ponds are cleared out, and a cleared fish pond naturally has no fish left.

This is Science Promoting Agriculture. You are welcome to follow, and let us grow our knowledge together.