Also On Saturday At The Flint

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that we netted 7 or 8 blotched chubs, Erimystax insignis, while looking for darters. We found them along the west bank, about 5 meters from the shore, in shallow, fast water, but not too fast. This species is ranked as S2, Imperiled, in Alabama since it's only found in parts of the Flint, Paint Rock and Shoal Creek. It's patchily common up in to east Tennessee and southwest Virginia with an overall ranking of G4, Apparently Stable, from the NatureServe site. Several of the individuals we saw were obviously gravid females, so they seem to belong to a healthy local population. It's another species worthy of more research into their current status, along with their general biology.