On clear, dark nights the Kansas City skyline bounces off the Missouri River. On the surface, the Big Muddy is boring. It's not wide like the Mississippi and it's not wild like the Yukon. Underwater is a different story. Ancient giants call the 2,300 mile long river home. Those fish make that river special.
A paddlefish lurking in the dark. Photo courtsey of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Paddlefish lurk in the muddy currents. The river has significantly changed over the millennia but paddlefish don't care. They can be neighbors with us and the Sinclaires. Spoonbills are gentle giants. They can grow over seven feet long and weigh over 200 pounds. The fish look like grey ships floating through the water column. For us humans, they are like a pleasant sail ship. For microorganisms, paddlefish are like aircraft carriers armed to the teeth. From above, their rostrum (the "paddle" part of paddlefish) even looks like a runway.
Actually, that's a pretty good comparison. Paddlefish swim up and down the Missouri drawing attention like carriers on the open ocean. The river was always big and slow-flowing. It was notorious with sailors in the 19th century for being different every single day. It was as inconsistently consistent as the weather in Kansas City. That river was perfect for paddlefish. The silty water was loaded with food. Paddlefish had all the tasty plankton (the freshwater kind not the krappie patty stealing kind). The rostrum helps them navigate the dark water and find food. It has millions of tiny sensors called ampullae of Lorenzini that detect electric signals from the plankton. Shovelnose Catfish as they're sometimes called swing the rostrum around like a radar in search of the next meal.
Smiling or not depends on your persepective I guess. Photo courtsey of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service