Re: NANFA-- Tim Berra & extreme collecting

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:29:15 -0400

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Yeah, I saw Berra's featured talk at last year's ASIH meeting. His slides of
his work are hugely interesting. Everything Chris says below is true, and
also the rivers there have the clarity of chocolate milk. That's an
interesting question of nurseryfish biology, how do they find each other in
opaque water so that the males wind up with "hats" of egg masses on their
heads?

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL, US of A

>From: Christopher Scharpf <ichthos_at_comcast.net>
>Reply-To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
>To: NANFA e-mail list <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
>Subject: NANFA-- Tim Berra & extreme collecting
>Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 19:23:09 -0400
>
>He's a neat guy and terrific writer. His "Natural History of Australia" is
>a
>great read.
>
>Next month he's off to Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia, to do more
>field work on nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri. The males carry the eggs on a
>hook on their head. Berra wants to catch pregnant males to do DNA paternity
>analysis to see if male with embryos is actually the daddy or if he was
>cuckolded. Trouble is, the river is full of salt-water crocodiles larger
>than the boat and they leap 2 m in the air. It is difficult to pull up gill
>nets without leaning over the boat. Tidal variation can be up to 7 m
>twice/day. Talk about tough collecting conditions!
>
>
>Chris
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