Casper, Bruce, Peter etc., I'll see what I can do about making the Flint
trip. Busy semester, but I can't pass up good collecting/snorkelling. If I
come up, I'll be doing additional sites in the drainage looking for madtoms,
maybe snorkelling at night (as JRs ears perk up... ;) Anyone interested?
Tony,
>1] Are these chrosomus that were the actors and actresses in the video
> >fired up and spawned after being kept for a long time or are they [the
> >spawners] collected in late winter/spring that were ripened already?
> >Compared to ones in natural habitat are they as brilliant?
I (and a couple of labmates) have kept chrosomus in a community tank- the
primary males get insanely pink/fuschia in late spring afternoons, almost
seem to glow. Easily as bright as in-stream peak color, and much brighter
than the normal nuptial coloration. So far, all eggs have been consumed by
other fishes in the tanks- I don't have much interest in breeding them.
>Has anyone here kept and bred redlip, greenhead, and races
>of yellowfin shiners? Do they fire up like in the wild?
Kept (except for chiliticus), spawned in captivity, and yes, were as bright
as in wild.
>2] I wonder does the Mississippi Southern redbelly dace look similar to
> >other SRBDs elsewhere? Is it protected?
MS State Endangered, I've only seen them in non-breeding condition and most
"erythrogaster" look similar. Todd Slack (pers. comm.) has mentioned that
they do not look anything at all like "erythrogaster" in nuptial coloration.
A detailed study on color, meristic, morphometric, and/or genetic variation
has not been done... if it had, the things would have been described
already.
>3] Anyone here kept and/or bred arrow darter and tangerine darter? Are
> >they all protected in every states [and cannot be kept?]?
Percina aurantiaca is SC in Tennessee, not protected in North Carolina.
Populations in much of Little TN river dr./Hiwassee are robust. They do very
well in aquaria, especially if obtained when small.
The Kentucky R. arrow darter (spilotum) is in dire straits due to habitat
degradation (ie. coal mining, bad forestry practices, etc). I'm not sure if
it has any protected status in KY, but it certainly deserves it. Some
Cumberland drainage populations (real sagitta) are more robust- although I'm
fairly sure that it is listed in Tennessee.
>4] I had seen a pic of whitetail shiner [Cyprinella galactura] in >Fishes
>of Arkansas book that shows the shiner with pink face.
I have two very large specimens (~6" TL) collected this past spring in the
Little Tennessee in NC- they had a small amount of pinkish/purple on the
cheek, but not much. I collected, but can't remember about Hiwassee
specimens.
>5] Has anyone here seen nupital male ironcolor shiner? What do they look
>like?
Similar to the non-nuptial, except with slightly more orangish tones. While
not a particularly colorful shiner, it is still rather stately. This fish is
currently declining very rapidly across much of its range- apparently
extirpated from MS and AL in the past 15 years; dropping out of upper
midwest, restricted to one stream system in PA, one in MD, etc. It is still
extant and locally common in Florida.
cheers,
Dave
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