Noturus eleutherus?

 Noturus eleutherus Mountain Madtom small.jpg   49.19KB   0 downloads

The above fish was found in the lower Tippecanoe R (Tippecanoe county) over a gravel shoal in roughly 6" of water.
I'm sceptically calling this a Mountain Madtom.

The below fish I'm also calling Mountain Madtom which was caught from a different location and is quite smaller than the above fish.
I was a bit more confident with the below ID at first but now, I'm questioning both ID's. Are the ID's correct and are these typical of the species?

Uland, I'm away from my books right now but Matt Thomas did a nice paper on morphological differentiation between N. eleutherus and N. stigmosus in the Ohio River drainage a while back -- you might want to email him and see if he has a PDF. Provisionally, both look like N. eleutherus, but I'd run them by Matt.

Many thanks Dave. Every lead of yours in matters like this has helped me learn and gain some perspective on broader issues.

Howdy Uland,

Here is the PDF if you don't already have it.

Blake

Matt agrees that both fish are N. eleutherus for a few reasons which he outlined via email and backed up with valuable documentation. I can certainly see why they are confused in the field but armed with Matt's papers and drawings, adult specimens should not often be confused with careful examination. I don't mean to say it would be easy, but with preserved fish I would have the time I'd need to make the decision.

Matt also mentioned that it's been a while since Mountain Northern Madtoms had been collected from the Tippecanoe according to his information. Thanks again for the direction and help guys.