The second graders at Cayuga Heights want to give a big thank you to our friends at Belle Sherman and Caroline Elementary Schools for sharing some trout with us! They are doing well and seem to be enjoying their new home. All the fish are getting along right now, but we have noticed some of the bigger fish are starting to chase the smaller fish.
Because we were lucky enough to receive trout from different locations, we decided to conduct a coloration experiment. Our hypothesis is that the trout coloration will change to match the background of our tank. A few weeks ago, with the help of Bill and his trusty interns, we created a dark green background for our tank and made scientific drawings to document the trout coloration.
When the trout from Caroline arrived on Wednesday we noticed a clear difference in coloration compared to the trout that had been in our dark green tank. Our Cayuga Heights trout were darker than the trout that arrived from Caroline. We suspect that the tank in Caroline has a lighter background than ours. We will be observing and documenting the trout's coloration over the next few weeks to see if the Caroline trout start to blend in with our Cayuga Heights trout.
1 comment:
We are doing a similar experiment at Belle Sherman. We painted a beautiful "natural" habitat background in browns and greens for our trout several months ago. After the lesson on coloration, and with help from Bill and Yuhang (one of the interns working with us) we designed an experiment. We carefully recorded the trout coloration in drawings, then painted a new background. Now our tank background is purple and red. In another week or so, we will check to see if our trout have changed color to match. Let us know how your experiment works out!
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