But are there any Asian markets in Ottumwa?
Actually, it turns out there are at least 3, and one of them (JM) is praised for its frozen fish section.
Whew. Sanity restored.
8/8
Apparently small frozen pompano are a fairly common staple in Asian stores. Even more surprising, when I went further down the aisle and found this.
7/
This week I was buying some spices at a local Asian store and was wandering through the frozen section, and there it was.
6/
I’d never seen pompano at the store, and I’d never seen at a restaurant (not even in sushi).
I wondered if it was used in pet food, fish sticks, imitation crab, etc. Couldn’t find any evidence that it’s used for any of those things.
5/
While the parrotfish signal did not persist, the pompano signal did.
We see it just about everywhere.
But where is it coming from?
When you google ‘pompano’ you find pictures like this.
Are these anglers bringing their catch home from ocean fishing trips?
4/
In the same sample we saw a large fraction of Pompano, another ocean fish.
I really thought we had mixed up with a Hawaiian sample.
3/
When I lived in the Keys I was told that Parrotfish tastes bad and has really soft flesh, but I suppose it’s a matter of taste. I never tried it, but I’d never seen it for sale at any store.
2/
Pompano and other mystery fish. The reveal.
About a year ago I was looking at the species distribution in wastewater from Ottumwa, Iowa and found a surprise. Parrotfish?
There’s no ocean in Iowa, and you don’t keep parrotfish as pets.
1/
Mystery solved.
Those who follow me know that I puzzle over species I detect in WW that don't make sense.
One I've mentioned before is Pompano; we've detected 177 times to date from all over the place.
Who knows where it is from?
I'll post the answer tomorrow.
clearly, cleanly. What did I mean?
Enjoy.
6/6
We’re also tightening up the output. Many of the sequences of perfect matches to more than 1 species. Rather than giving a generic and imprecise name for the group, we are no listing all of the species that are perfect matches.
5/
But it didn’t stop there, we also ended up picking up most of the pets in the store, including:
Rabbit, guinea pig, white rat, 3 frogs, two types of parakeets, a finch, and a cockatiel.
4/
We were mostly thinking we would find fish, and we did, 68 different species, in fact.
3/
While we were working out our protocols, the good folks at Columbia Pet Center (great store) let us collect water from their aquarium water return (fresh and salt water) for testing.
We decided to add that data to the dashboard (dates combined).
2/
columbiapetcenter.weebly.com
This is fun, made a bunch of updates to the species dashboard, both sites and outputs.
Pet shop data.
1/
dholab.github.io/public_viz/0...
A highly divergent COVID lineage. It's been around around for over a year, but it's been slowly gaining traction.
And as expected, the patient sequences are FINALLY starting to roll in. There are now 12 US non-traveler sequences, most of which where submitted in the last 2 weeks.
I guess that makes the score 192 to 12.
3/3
BA.3.2 is also starting to show up cleaning on the mutation tracker. The red circle is mostly the BA.3.2 mutations. It's probably close 4-5% now.
2/
BA.3.2 update. We're now up to 192 wastewater detections across 31 states.
1/
Yes, but I don't know if/where is posted.
I love that they didn't cut the clip at minute 5. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE38...
What's it sell for? Sounds like it is kind of like halibut.
Hopefully it’s all coming from the farmed sturgeon from the area.
5/5
In addition to the sturgeon eggs (caviar), I guess the white sturgeon meat is quite tasty(I've never had it).
4/
www.foodandwine.com/seafood/fish...
However, as of July 2024 the white sturgeon was a candidate for listing as threatened and is supposed to be catch and release only.
3/
wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation...
This tracks with the range of this fish.
2/
nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/fact...
This is interesting.
I noticed that we detect a lot of sturgeon in Northern California. Particularly Sacramento.
1/
Here was my lesson of the day. I’ve lived in Missouri most of my life, but I never realized until now that fishing for Crappie in winter is a thing. They stay active all year round.
Apparently it’s pretty popular.
4/4
We also call out the number of species detected in particular orders if you want to investigate animal types.
3/
