Stop and look!

Stop and look!

Stone loach
Scientific Name: Barbatula barbatula
Vogelsberg, Hessen, Germany - EOS 5, 2.8/100mm - 16.08.2003 - wildlife

There are simply motives, those works simply not as birds or butterflies, in particular in the Thumb.
I am, however, very proud on the picture of the small Stone loach. The Stone loachis an soil-inhabiting fish and lives in oxygen-rich brooks and rivers and becomes long in exceptional cases to 15 cm.
The Stone loach has an enormous distribution area from central Spain, over completely Europe and north Asia to Japan. In the spring they placing their eggs at roots or plants, which are then guarded up to the slip by the male.
Otherwise they behaviour is very secret and only by turning stones you can find them.
The individual above I'd found under a stone which I slowly raised and it had a length about 6 cm.
Taken up in the Salz, a little stream in the Vogelsberg, Hessen, Germany.