jpsdad, thanks for the links! I have been reading through the discussion by the various scientists and researchers around the world. It was remarkable to read about a couple things. One dutch researcher had done an experiment with ducks and fish eggs, including actually force feeding one group viable eggs and mixing eggs with food for the other, and found live/viable eggs in the duck feces! Hmmmm...
Another discussion I thought was remarkable I'll directly quote: "...story from Wikipedia about the Leucaspius delineatus, the Sunbleak, which as a telling german name..."The common German name Moderlieschen. Literally meaning "the little motherless one", this ultimately refers to the fact that the sticky eggs of the moderlieschen can withstand exposure to air for a remarkably long time. Deposited on water plants, they sometimes stick to the feet of ducks and similar birds and are carried by these to ephemeral ponds. Large numbers of young moderlieschens are thus sometimes encountered when such ponds dry up, and with no adult fish being present this gave rise to the belief that they were "motherless".
So, while not proving the theory, it does provide increased plausibility. Perhaps some of the eggs or gravid members of our North American pond species are also able to tolerate, in some minute quantity, dispersal in this way? And if even a few eggs can survive a trip through a bird's GI tract, then long distance transfer becomes much more feasible.
