NANFA-- American Currents

DasArm_at_aol.com
Sat, 26 Aug 2000 21:52:46 EDT

The new issue of American Currents is pretty cool.I got it a few days ago.I
really liked the fact that it featured a more obscure species like the mud
sunfish which I hadn't previously read very much about. Especially since I
like sunfishes! The fact that Pine Barrens stream water was "bacterially
sterile" and potable was surprising; I didn't know any fish could live in
water like that.
The part about the reclassification of Olympic mudminnows as pikes was
surprising. I don't know if I could agree with that right now. I admit that I
am no expert at it, that the guys who did it know more about the
relationships of different fish species to each other than I do, and the fact
that DNA analysis of the species seems like very compelling evidence, but
what I'm wondering is, how accurate is our current DNA analysis techniques of
fish species? How much probability is there for error in this matter? My main
point of contention is that Olympic mudminnows do not appear to have the
"duckbill" jaws that members of the pike family have, and are close to the
same size as central and eastern mudminnows. Granted, they're from a
different genus than the "other" members of the pike family which are all in
one single genus,i.e., Esox (at least that I'm aware of); but that doesn seem
to stretch credibility. I'm not against reclassifying organisms as long as it
more accurately reflects the true relationships that different organisms have
to each other, but I will question those reclassifications if I don't see the
reasoning behind it.
The rest of the magazine was really interesting, and as always, informative.

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