----- Original Message -----
From: "Irate_Mormon" <archimed_at_netdoor.com>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 12:49 AM
Subject: NANFA-- Fabulous Fishes and intriguing personality test
> Well, since Jan seems reluctant (too busy) to talk about the event he
> organized last Saturday, I'll take up the mantle. "Fabulous Fishes" was
> held at the Clinton Community Nature Center near Jackson, MS. Based on
> past events we expected an attendance of 200 people, but owing to the fact
> that the Jackson paper did not print the press release, we had "only" 115
> registered visitors. There were several distinguished visitors to help
man
> various stations, including Neil Douglas who presented me with an
> autographed copy of "Fishes of Louisiana" (Thanks Neil!) since I missed
out
> on my last opportunity. The attendees were mostly youngsters, who
received
> some sort of school credit for visiting each of four "mandatory"
> stations. Neil staffed the fish ID station, where he had an array of
> pickled fishes for the kids to handle and figure out what they were. I
had
> an "optional" aquarium setup station which was a disaster because the
water
> was all murky from the gravel I _thought_ I had cleaned. The nice welaka
> and signipinnis were totally obscured, but the little gar I had caught two
> days previously (whilst searching for sand darters and shadow bass in the
> Strong River) displayed himself nicely, despite being picked up off the
> carport floor the previous day by my wife as she left for work that
> morning. But actually the big hit at the aquarium station was the test
kit
> (donated by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) - the kids didn't care about the
fish
> but loved doing pH, NH3, etc. tests with the little test tubes and
> chemicals! There was also a fish scale station - all different kinds of
> fish scales the kids could look at with dissecting scopes and what not. I
> had to chuckle when I overheard Jan instructing one of the volunteers in
> the use of a rather large, curled section of gar skin - "Get them to put
> their arm inside and feel what it's like to actually BE a gar...", etc.
> :-) There was also a respiration experiment with goldfish and bowfin, a
> fishing gear demo, a magnetic "match the fish" game, and perhaps most
> interesting was the dissection station manned by Steven George in the
> pouring rain (actually helped keep the stench down), featuring paddlefish,
> sharks, sturgeon, and I would presume a bony fish or two but I don't
> remember seeing one. I enjoyed his demonstration of how to pull out a
> notochord! I also got a kick out of his stuffed eel ("He'll mount
> ANYTHING" said Jan). There was a fish skeleton station which seemed to be
> the biggest hit, and a selection of fish skulls which I personally found
> the most interesting. Oh, there was a GAMAKATU (or whatever you call it,
I
> can never remember) station where you make ink blots of real fishes on
> paper, and lots of givaways (which seemed mainly to distract the kids from
> the real business at hand). Sadly, the beautiful NANFA display went
> largely unnoticed, but lots of NANFA T-shirts were worn :-).
>
> Anyway, after the show wound down, Jan and I had time to discuss various
> things, and somehow the topic of melanistic F. chrysotus came up. I
> mentioned that I had found a population of these guys, which appear
> identical to the xanthic form except wherever the former is yellow, these
> guys are BLACK. They look almost like mollies, that's how black they
> are. The males in good color have red tails too, just like the normal
> xanthic chrysotus, but it looks really awesome against that black body
with
> lighter bands. Jan said he had seen these too, although not in the same
> part of the state. We were comparing habitat notes to see if we could pin
> down the reason for this particular adaptation. It will be interesting to
> see if the coloration persists in F1 and F2 offspring reared in an
> aquarium. I will let you guys know how it works out - evidently nobody is
> really investigating these fish.
>
> Lots of photos were taken and presumably will be posted to the NANFA page
> when Jan gets back from the field and has time to do so. This was LOADS
of
> fun and I can't wait to do it again in September. It seems this is the
> direction the MS chapter of NANFA is taking, rather than collecting trips,
> etc., (I never really thought of it that way until Charlie pointed it out
> in his last memo), so that is where my future efforts will be focused.
>
> Oh hey, I just noticed a newborn Heterandria in the mayonaisse-jar
> "aquarium" on my desk :-) More another time...
>
>
>
>
> Prost,
>
> Martin
> Jackson, MS
> -------------------
> Life's a fish and then you fry.
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