Underwater everglades

South Florida’s Everglades are one of the largest wetlands in the world. The region is famous for its seemingly endless sawgrass prairies that are seasonally flooded, and abundant wildlife – including alligators. The Everglades also contain a lot of interesting species of fish, both native and introduced. I recently took some underwater videos which illustrate this.

In the above video I tried to identify all the species present. There are at least 11, including 6 native (N) and 5 introduced (I) species:

Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) (N)
Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) (N)
Florida gar (Lepisosteus platyrhincus) (N)
Silverside (Labidesthes vanhyningi or Menidia beryllina) (N)
Largemouth bass (Micropteurs salmoides) (N)
Bluefin killifish (Lucania goodei) (N)
Butterfly peacock bass (Cichla ocellaris) (I)
Mayan cichlid (Mayaheros urophthalmus) (I)
Hornet tilapia (Heterotilapia buttikoferi) (I)
Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) (I)
Unidentified species in family Cichlidae (I)

---

In this video, taken in Big Cypress National Preserve, which is contiguous with the Everglades, I was able to identify 8 different species, although there may be more:

Florida gar (Lepisosteus platyrhincus) (N)
Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) (N)
Warmouth (Lepomis gulosus) (N)
Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) (N)
Oscar (Astronotus ocellatus) (I) seen from above in beginning
Mayan cichlid (Mayaheros urophthalmus) (I)
Sailfin catfish (Pterygoplichthys sp.) (I)
Tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) (I)

---

Finally, this video was taken on the same day and about 50 feet away from where the previous video was filmed. Only two species were present:

African jewelfish (Hemichromis letourneuxi) (I)
Florida gar (Lepisosteus platyrhincus) (N)

However, the African jewelfish were incredibly abundant and seemily unphased by the camera.