Hocutt and Wiley's ZOOGEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICAN FRESHWATER FISHES.
> Also interested in how continental drift might have had a role in these
> things.
Continental drift played a big role. Ancestors to North America's present
day archaic or "fossil" fishes - lampreys, sturgeons, paddlefish, bowfin,
and gars - hail from Pangaea, the supercontinent in which all the world's
continents had been fused 180 million years ago. Forty or so million years
later, while Pangaea was splitting into a northern landmass, Laurasia (the
future North America, Europe and Asia), and a southern landmass,
Gondwanaland (the future South America, Africa, India, Australia, and
Antarctica), various modern freshwater fish groups began to develop. On
Laurasia these consisted of what would later become today's pikes,
mudminnows, pirate perch, trout-perch, cavefishes, and salmonids (salmon,
trout, ciscoes, and whitefishes). Other fish families - most notably
minnows, suckers and perches - arrived here via one (or both) land
"bridges" that connected northern North America to Eurasia at various times
across the Atlantic Ocean and the Bering Strait. Characins and other
neotropical fishes began entering North America about 14 million years ago,
when the uplift of Central America connected North and South America for the
first time since their Pangaean days.
Hope this helps,
Chris Scharpf
Baltimore
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org