Day one started off slowly. First, I had check the greenhouse water pumps, something I thought would be done the day before. Second, we had load up supplies. Fortunately, Susie aided in this task (she desperately wanted us gone). We finally pulled away from the farm only five hours late at 11:00 a.m.
I had originally “planned” (meaning I given it a passing thought) to first go to Del Rio, Texas where we would have visited the habitats of two of the species. Due to the tardy start, I opted to go to the closer San Marcos Spring only about 100 miles away in San Marcos, Texas. This spring is one of the homes of Gambusia geiseri, the Large Spring Gambusia, and was home to the now extinct G. georgei.
- geiseri is native to at least two major springs along Texas’ Balcones Fault, San Marcos Spring and Comal Springs. I’ll deal with each of these two species in separate blogs.
After hiking along the San Marcos River downstream of the spring, taking photos of the G. georgei habitat and trying to get photos from above of the plentiful G. geiseri, and allowing the dogs to stretch their legs, we re-boarded the Suburban to proceed to the next stop, Comal Springs in New Braunfels, Texas only about 20 miles away.
Arriving at Landa Park in New Braunfels where the Comal Springs bubble up from multiple places, we leashed the dogs and hiked to view the springs. Here, like at San Marcos, G. geiseri was abundant. After allowing the dogs to get some exercise since big dogs require a lot of it, we left Landa Park and drove west. Before completely exiting San Marcos we stopped to get chicken strips for the pups. I swear they can recognize McDonalds and Wendy’s signs.
The day ended at an RV park in Blanco on the Guadalupe River, home to G. affinis and no other Gambusia I know of. I’m not sure if G. affinis was originally there or was introduced long ago.
The next blog will be: “Gambusia Road Trip – Day 2.”
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