There’s a lot more in these lakes than just the fish – check out the photos below for a look at our other underwater denizens
Stingray
Description: Stingrays are a group of sea rays, which are cartilaginous fish related to sharks. Stingrays are disk-shaped and have flexible, tapering tails armed, in most species, with one or more saw-edged, venomous spines. Stingrays range in size from about as small as a dinner plate to as big as 16.5 feet (5 meters) long including the tail
DescriptionStingrays eat crustaceans and other invertebrates. Their powerful jaws can easily crush the shells of clams and mussels, and they will occasionally eat small fish
Diet: The stingray is found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Habitat: It typically inhabits sandy or muddy habitats in coastal waters shallower than 60 m (200 ft), often burying itself in sediment.
Range: The lifespan of a stingray in the wild is currently unknown. In human care, they live between 5 and 10 years.
Life Span: Stingrays are known for their stingers, but they are actually very docile creatures. When not feeding, southern stingrays bury themselves in the sand with only their eyes and spiracles visible. They can be found individually, in pairs, or in loose groups.
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC fish feeding station.
Where It's Found: Stingray are not considered endangered or extinct
Blue Crab
Description: Blue crab claws are bright blue, and mature females have red tips on their claws. Blue crabs can grow to about 9 inches across
DescriptionBlue crabs eat almost anything, including clams, oysters, mussels, smaller crustaceans, freshly dead fish, and plant/animal detritus
Diet: The blue crab is widely distributed along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, from Nova Scotia through the Gulf of Mexico and as far south as Uruguay.
Habitat: Blue crab habitats include underwater grasses and oyster reefs, and they range from shallow, brackish waters to deeper, saltier waters.
Range: Blue crabs generally live for 3 or 4 years. They reach maturity in 12 to 18 months.
Life Span: Blue crabs aggressively take on any opponent by raising claws toward their enemies while scuttling sideways to escape.
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC fish feeding station.
Where It's Found: Blue crabs are not considered extinct
Brown Crab
Description: It is a robust crab of a reddish-brown colour, having an oval carapace with a characteristic "pie crust" edge and black tips to the claws. A mature adult may have a carapace width up to 25 centimetres and weigh up to 3 kilograms.
DescriptionThe Brown crab's diet includes. a variety of crustaceans and molluscs. It may stalk or ambush motile prey, and may dig large pits to reach buried molluscs.
Diet: Brown crab is a species of crab found in the North Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, and perhaps the Mediterranean Sea.
Habitat: Fully-grown brown crabs will live in water down to around one hundred metres deep.
Range: Longevity is typically 25–30 years, although exceptional individuals may live up to 100 years.
Life Span: Reproduction of the Brown crab occurs in winter.On an average the females lay around 0.25-3.0 million eggs
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC fish feeding station.
Where It's Found: Brown crabs are not considered extinct.
Bristle Worm
Description: Bristle worms have soft, segmented bodies with tiny, hair-like bristles along each side. They can grow very large—up to 24 inches in a tank—but most are between one and six inches long.
DescriptionBristle worms eat plankton and other bits of organic matter such as algae and dead organisms.
Diet: Bristleworms range throughout the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers.
Habitat: Bristle worms are soft, segmented worms found along shorelines, mud flats and shallow waters
Range: Bristle worm's life cycles are approx a week to a month
Life Span: Some may build tubes or burrows that they return to, while others move around freely
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC reflecting pools(?)
Where It's Found: Bristle worms are not considered extinct
Crayfish
Description: Most adult crayfish are about 7.5 cm (3 inches) long. Crayfish are characterized by a joined head and thorax, or midsection, and a segmented body, which is sandy yellow, green, red, or dark brown in colour.
DescriptionThey are most active at night, when they feed largely on snails, insect larvae, worms, and amphibian tadpoles
Diet: Species of crayfish are widely distributed throughout the world and are found abundantly in most of the continental United States.
Habitat: They live in ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes most typically under submerged rocks and logs.
Range: The life span ranges from 1 to 20 years, depending on the species of crayfish
Life Span: It has been shown that crayfish are aggressive, a conclusion usually drawn by observation of the use of their infamous pincers
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC fish feeding station.
Where It's Found: In May 2016, the Service listed the Big Sandy crayfish as a threatened species, protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Hermit Crab
Description: Hermit crabs have ten jointed legs, and usually the front two are of different sizes. Long-clawed hermit crabs grow up to 1 1/2 inches long. Broad-clawed hermit crabs grow up to 4 inches long.
DescriptionHermit crabs are omnivorous scavengers, eating microscopic mussels and clams, bits of dead animals, and macroalgae.
Diet: Many different species of land hermit crabs live in tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific region, the western Atlantic and the western Caribbean.
Habitat: Hermit crabs live close to the shoreline and must have access to both land and water.
Range: Hermit crabs can live for more than 30 years in their natural habitats on tropical seashores
Life Span: The large left claw is used for defense, and the smaller right claw for scooping food and water. Hermit crabs normally act with each other in standard ways, by crawling over each other and when they do this they are actually smelling each other.
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC reflecting pools (?).
Where It's Found: Hermit crabs are not considered extinct or endangered.
Mussels
Description: Marine mussels are usually wedge-shaped or pear-shaped and range in size from about 5 to 15 centimetres (about 2 to 6 inches).
DescriptionMussels filter their food out of the water. They eat algae, bacteria, and other small, organic particles filtered from the water column.
Diet: Marine mussels are abundant in the low and mid intertidal zone in temperate seas globally. Other species of marine mussel live in tropical intertidal areas, but not in the same huge numbers as in temperate zones.
Habitat: Mussels live in the sand and gravel bottoms of streams and rivers. They require good water quality, stable stream channels and flowing water
Range: Most mussels live around 60 to 70 years in good habitat.
Life Span: During the breeding season, females lay eggs and brood them inside specialized chambers in their gills called a marsupia.
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC Iguana pond and reflecting pool.
Where It's Found: Freshwater mussels are the most endangered group of organisms in North America because they are highly sensitive to water pollution.
Oysters
Description: Eastern oysters usually grow to three to five inches in length, but can reach a length of eight inches.
DescriptionOysters feed by extracting algae and other food particles from the water they are almost constantly drawing over their gills.
Diet: Oysters live in salty or brackish waters on all U.S. coasts
Habitat: Oysters set as wild spat on rocks and shells in bays, sounds, and intertidal beaches.
Range: An oyster becomes an adult when it turns one year old and can live as long as 20 years
Life Span: They reproduce when the water warms by broadcast spawning, and will change gender once or more during their lifetime.
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC Iguana pond and Reflecting pools.
Where It's Found: They are not currently listed as threatened or endangered.
Spongues
Description: Sponges are similar to other animals in that they are multicellular, heterotrophic, and lack cell walls. Unlike other animals, they lack true tissues and organs.
DescriptionMost sponges are detritivores -- they eat organic debris particles and microscopic life forms that they filter out of ocean water.
Diet: They number approximately 5,000 described species and inhabit all seas, where they occur attached to surfaces from the intertidal zone to depths of 8,500 metres (29,000 feet) or more.
Habitat: Sponges are worldwide in their distribution, living in a wide range of ocean habitats, from the polar regions to the tropics. Most live in quiet, clear waters, because sediment stirred up by waves or currents would block their pores, making it difficult for them to feed and breathe.
Range: Sponges can live for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Life Span: Many movements of the sponge are difficult to connect to a stimulus, but several large cringes were clearly associated with a storm whose arrival could be detected by changes in pressure.
Behavior: They are found throughout the KLAC parks.
Where It's Found: No, sponges are not on the endangered species list. However, there are threats to their habitat in some areas due to factors such as pollution, disease, exploitation, or hurricanes.
Rotifers
Description: Rotifers are the smallest animals. Their outer coat looks like clear glass. Sometimes this glassy coat is covered with spines or spikes. Rotifers are small organisms, generally ranging from 100–1,000 μm long
DescriptionRotifers eat particulate organic detritus, dead bacteria, algae, and protozoans.
Diet: Rotifers are animals of the phylum Rotifera. They can be found mainly in freshwater within moist soils, still waters, and free-flowing waters.
Habitat: Rotifers are found in huge numbers in most freshwater habitats, but they also occur in moist terrestrial habitats, particularly moss beds.
Range: The life span of rotifers has been estimated to be between 3.4 to 4.4 days
Life Span: Some rotifers are free swimming and truly planktonic, others move by inchworming along a substrate
Behavior: They are found in the KLAC throughout the lakes
Where It's Found: Rotifers are not considered threatened or endangered.
Copepods
Description: copepods are tiny oceanic crustaceans. Most copepods are 0.5 to 2 mm (0.02 to 0.08 inch) long.
DescriptionThe copepod eats diatoms and other phytoplankton — and is eaten, in turn, by larger drifters, larval fishes and filter-feeders.
Diet: Copepods inhabit a huge range of waters, from fresh to hyper salty; from subterranean caves to high altitude lakes; from polar ice-water to hydrothermal vents.
Habitat: They are most common in still water habitats such as ponds, lakes, wetlands, or backwaters of rivers.
Range: The development may take from less than one week to as long as one year, and the life span of a copepod ranging from six months to one year.
Life Span: Copepods are also able to respond to their surroundings using chemosensory sensilla. These structures consist of several sensory cells. These structures are present on the antenna
Behavior: They are found throughout the KLAC lakes.
Where It's Found: Copepods are considered to be critically endangered
Snails
Description: A snail is a small mollusk with a spiral-shaped shell. It can grow to a length of 16 inches
DescriptionSea snails eat mostly algae, but carnivorous snails will eat fish, snails, worms, and mollusks.
Diet: They live across the globe ranging from the Arctic deep north through the equatorial region down to the Antarctic oceans.
Habitat: They like to live around reefs and attach themselves to surfaces underwater like rocks and plants.
Range: Sea snails usually live about five years but can live as long as 25 years in the wild.
Life Span: Sea snails are widely known to be one of the slowest living animals; their name has even been used to refer to slow people or activities. Most sea snails do courtship as part of their behavior in mating
Behavior: They are found throughout the KLAC reflecting pools and iguana ponds.
Where It's Found: Ocean snail is the first animal to be officially endangered by deep-sea mining.
Microbes
Description: Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen by the naked eye.
DescriptionThe microbes we use feed on the algae and other organic deposits and help keep our lakes clean and clear.
Diet: Microbes exist in almost every situation possible, whether that's inside the body or outside in the environment, microbes are always present
Habitat: They live in water, soil, and in the air. The human body is home to millions of these microbes too, also called microorganisms.
Range: Bacteria divide somewhere between once every 12 minutes and once every 24 hours. So the average lifespan of a bacterium is around 12 hours or so.
Life Span: The study of microorganisms is called microbiology. Micro-organisms include bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists and viruses, and are among the earliest known life forms.
Behavior: They are found throughout the KLAC lakes.
Where It's Found: Some microbial species are considered to be threatened