ID traits of okefenokee and evergladei

Hi folks,

Well, this seems to be the million dollar question, and I bet Mike Sandel knows the answer

How the heck do you tell between E. okefenoke and E. evergladei?

I brought this single pretty boy home to photograph and possibly preserve.

http://gallery.nanfa...dae/evergladei/

After our first photo session, which was rushed, I threw him in my Florida 75 gallon on the chance that I might see him again and get more discerning pictures instead of making a dead mount, since I'd be going back in May.

I'm pleased to say this fish is doing really really really well, and I can find him pretty much any time if I just stop and look around. In fact, I will collect some more when I'm down in May. He's eating pieces of Hikari mysis and I think hunting bugs out of the duck weed. I don't know what the carrying capacity is in there for the genus, but I'm gonna make the committment to try, and if they do poorly, start rearing brine and blackworms to keep them in 10 gallons here in this Sweathouse also known as my lab.

Any thoughts and suggestion appreciated! There needs to be a Florida book, hopefully Larry works on that next when they finish the Peterson, although I'm not holding my breath. Is the Suncoast Killifish Association Book worth picking up?

Thanks!
Todd

MMMMMM, I have to say that is an okeefenokee.

Females pretty easy. Female okees are mottled. Female evergladei are uniform brown, or might show some faint bars especially towards the tail

Male okees have blue bands, always. Evergladei males usually have spangles of blue on them, they might form something like barring, but nothing distinct.

However, Elassoma are highly variable across their range. Its the typical, east coast vs Fl pennisual, vs the western part of the range.

Another Okee trait that I have never seen on evergladei, the neat blue trim on unpaired fins. I think all the descriptions I have read in field guides suck to put it bluntly. Like you can see the scales on the head of a live pygmy you want to keep alive. I have never seen that white on the lips of an okee, and the tail spots are supposed to be different.

Once you see the two side by side, a pair of each even, you should never have troubles telling them apart again. That is the problem, seeing is believing.

Iding pygmies is a lot like juvenile sunfish. Experience works best, but with the pygmies you don't get to grow them out and see for sure, they are already grown out. The fin porportions to the body are different on the two species too, especially noticable on the males.

Petersons field guide sketches of the pygmies are bad. They show them all with various styles of banding and seem to only use blue for the color. Well, I will leave the zonatum and alabamae out of this for that. The blue of okees is a purpley blue, while the evergladei is an electric blue, that can range from blue, to green, to silver, to gold - even pinkish.

Some of this coloration is tough too, with juveniles, non spawning males, stressed fish in the mix and all that. Think big fins, bands on males and mottleing on female okees. Think small fins, bland brown females, and spangling on male evergladei.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much Ray. Yeah, I'm going to print this off and put it in my Alabama book for when I go back down in May. Hopefully I can get both species and get photographs to tell them apart, as you say, the books currently suck, and yeah, you're totally going to kill it to figure out which it is Maybe the macro lense can help us out on this one.

I got some good video of this specimen the other night in the 75 gallon, spunky lil' monkey that he is. I'll try and upload that tonight while I'm finishing my video for my talk at the SW Michgan Aquarium Society tomorrow night.

Todd

Hey Todd,

Sorry it took so long to reply, I've been dragging my feet getting on the forum. Ray did an excellent job describing the differences between these two species. Here are some additional observations that I've made while collecting.

Some characters that are not reliable for delimiting species:

Color: Some Elassoma evergladei from southern Alabama and northeastern Florida are equally as blue as E. okefenokee. Otherwise, E. evergladei are gold to turquoise. E. okefenokee are always blue, sometimes approaching violet.

Blue fin margins: This character varies with geography in E. okefenokee, and perhaps could be used to delimit the eastern and western species.

Head scales: Elassoma evergladei from southern Alabama lack head scales.

Fin size: E. evergladei from the Okefenokee swamp have fins comparable to most E. okefenokee.


Some characters that are reliable for delimiting species:

Eye reflectors: On E. okefenokee, the two bright blue iridescent patches behind and below the eye are easy to see (as in your specimen). This is less clear when fish are not breeding. E. evergladei sometimes has a small reflector behind (but *usually not* below) the eye.

Body shape: This is absolutely the best character (for me) when identifying these two species. After I focused on this character, field work became much more efficient. E. okefenokee is diamond shaped. E. evergladei is tubular (relatively speaking). For both species, the maximum body depth is located at the anterior insertion of the dorsal fin. This is very easy to determine with E. okefenokee, even for juveniles and non breeding adults.

Jaw shape: This character works well too, but requires taking a close look at the head. When you look at the jaws, try to decide if it looks like a grouper or a white bass. E. evergladei look like a grouper, with a wide, "grumpy" mouth. E. okefenokee look like a white bass, with a narrower, "pointy" mouth. The white lip character is clear on your photo, but like Ray said, it is variable.

Compare the photo at Jonah's to your fish, and these three characters are pretty clear.

http://jonahsaquariu...vergladei08.htm

Mike

Glad to see you here Mike! Thanks for the additional discussion, I'll have to add this to my 'bammy books. Suprisingly, we didn't run into that many elassoma on my trip in May. They were suprisingly absent from the slough on the Wakulla, but it was at standstill. I'm betting they moved downstream. And they just weren't found in Tate's Hell. Saw a TON of zonatum there, but none of the purty blue fellers. Might have been too swampy for them.

Todd

I will be harvesting the ponds in the next three weeks. I hope to put up many photos of juvenile fish. Among these will be pygmies. I have okeefenokee from the Wachulla population, and evergladei from an unknown population ( and zonatum from TN). All my populations of evergladeis eventually crapped out on me, and got some back from a fella I gave some to years ago. However, the location data was lost. They are pretty typical evergladei. Not distinct ones from say AL, NC or way south FL. They could be mixed even, but I am guessing they may be from Waycross GA originally, since that is one of the only locations that doesn't fit the ones I listed above, which I can usually tell quite easily.

Sure hope it works out anyways. Hate to make promises I cannot keep. These photos should help many, this forum rocks!

I never thought of that one, though its rolled around in my head. Mikes indication of the mouth shape. I noticed that too, but it never was clear to me before reading his post. I think the white bass / grouper comparison is great. Finding photos of both of those fish is easy, and they are familiar to most people.

I was thinking that this past spring right before I put the pygmies in their tubs. The evergladei sure looked groupery, hahahha, new word. Okees don't do this, other than the neat shape of the fins, kinda reminds one of the rubbery looking gaudy fins of some grouper. Those evergladei, why they are growly looking I don't know. They have a larger range than the okees. Maybe the okees have that snobby look ( ala white bass) because they have that smaller more exclusive distribution, larger fins on average, and better color definition. Anthropomorphism is fun.

Todd,

The Wakulla (Mcbride's) slough situation is strange. I've noticed over the years that the little rock "retention wall" has been raised and lowered quite a bit, and each time the vegetation changes correspondingly. When the wall is low, flow increases and the eel grass stuff dominates. When the wall is high the flow is reduced and the filamentous stuff moves back in. Abundant filamentous stuff usually means easy pygmy pickin'.

P.S. Were the Pteronotropis present in May?

Mike

Were the Pteronotropis present in May?

Hey Mike,

Yeah they were. Nothing big, but there were two age classes.

Todd