NB: Not my original creation but I find this super intriguing. "I’ve seen so many surprising things while slogging in the swamp. It’s what keeps me coming back. But, this quiet wildlife encounter was truly exceptional and one of my favorites. Explorer @peter_houlihan and I were rigging old growth cypress trees to study the canopy life on the Black River, NC when I saw slight movement at the base of a decaying trunk. It was a massive catfish! With all the surrounding water gone, it looked stuck. But then I looked closer and realized it was exactly where it wanted to be because it was guarding a large clutch of eggs at the base of its tail. If you zoom in, you can see the pink mass. It turns out that once females lay eggs, the male flathead catfish will often take over guarding them from predators, including from their own mother. This dedicated dad stayed with his progeny, delicately moving his tail so sediment wouldn’t smother them, even while all the water dried up around him making him vulnerable to predators. Once dusk approached, Peter and I went back to make this portrait. And just like that, my love and appreciation for the complex ecology of these ecosystems deepened even further"
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Shot for @natgeo@insidenatgeo on @tnc_nc property for “Ghost Forests” in Sept issue of Nat Geo Magazine, editing by @afarrar.
