Ah Yes, The Species Question; Or, Can You Tell A Telescope Shiner From A Tennessee Shiner?

After last Friday's trip to Hurricane Creek it began to dawn on me that we had probably been seeing Tennessee Shiners (Notropis leuciodus) as well as Telescope Shiners (N. telescopus) in our collections. I'd been calling all shiners with a bent lateral pore "track" pattern Telescopes, partially because I'd been expecting to find brightly colored Tennessees. But we've found no breeding-condition Tennessees, and I realize that some of the specimens we've kept and called Telescopes are actually Tennessees. Believe me, the differences are subtle if the specimens aren't in breeding colors. Basically, Tennessees are slimmer, have slightly smaller eyes, and have a dark rectangular horizontal bar at the base of the caudal. The bar is the only really good diagnostic. I've gone back and re-read the Boschung & Mayden Fishes of Alabama book and Scott Mettee et al.'s Fishes of Alabama and they all agree that it's easy to confuse lecuciodus and telescopus. I fully agree! In Alabama the Tennessee Shiner is pretty much only found in the upper Paint Rock system, and I realize that the only times I've seen it have been during collecting trips in April and May when the fish is in breeding color.

We hope to be able to go back to Hurricane Creek with Nick Sharp for snorkeling some time next month while temperatures are still at a maximum. I'm still obsessed with looking for more flame chubs there; maybe the truth is that flames have very small populations there, and always have.

This Friday my flame chub crew will be making our last trip of the summer, as summer school ends next week. We'll head once more into Lauderdale County west of Florence, visiting sites on Lindsay and Burcham Creeks (I hope!). As of our last trip the presence/absence tally stands at 41 historic sites visited, with flame chubs found at 17 of them, for a running total of 58% site reduction. I suspect that we'll find flames at one or more of the sites this Friday, we'll see.