Redlip Shiner - Notropis chiliticus

Well the NC fellas may not be interested in Maxi Jet modifications, so I thought I'd take my derail on my own thread over here

I got the wife's good camera out. She hid the new macro lense I got her for Christmas. I can't wait to get a flash for it. Maybe then I'll clean the glass when I go to get photos

So there was argument at the Convention over what a redlip shiner was. I think this stemmed from the folks who'd gone to the Dan the first day.

We caught this fish in the South Yadkin, which is Pee Dee drainage.

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I said "That's a redlip shiner". They said "No, not what Fritz was calling a redlip shiner."

Then we got into somewhere between the Catawba and Broad, which I'm pretty danged sure was the Broad, but I'm not sure which we were in where. Maybe Philip can figure out where we were at. We were south of Hickory, that's all I really know.

We caught a fish that I said "That's a yellowfin shiner". They said "No, that's what Fritz was calling a redlip shiner."

I said "The distributions are all wrong." They shrugged. "That's a redlip shiner." I didn't feel like arguing (imagine that!) and so I just let it be. Didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But I was still curious.

So we get to camp a day later, and I look in the book, and the picture isn't dead on with what I saw in the Yadkin, however, the description in the text was. When I got home I looked on the web and found this Jenkins picture on Natureserve http://www.natureserve.org:

 GetImage.jpg   9.8KB   3 downloads

© Noel Burkhead & Virginia Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries (Fishes of Virginia)
Photographer: Noel Burkhead
Image ID#: 127
Location: Pauls Creek, Carroll Co., VA
Date: 20 June 1984
Gender: male
Life Stage: adult

This looked very similar to the "yellowfin" in the Broad or Catawba. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of those fish. So that just confused me more.

What I'm most concerned about is this red and charcoal splatted fish is at least the Pee Dee version of the redlip shiner.

In any case, it seems there's some good nuptiual coloration evidence there for a split. I don't know if Molly Cashner looked at that or not in her study. Are there any publications that have come out of those studies? I know there's been some splits... Just not sure which and what.

Oh well. I'd love to hear any thoughts.

Todd

Your top picture is definitely a redlip. DOn't forget to add greenheads into the mix. These are essentially yellowfins in NC.

LOL. Don't believe a damn thing that Fritz says!! I agree with Dustin, first photo (darn good one) is a redlip shiner. The biologists with Duke Power Company have been getting fish from Catawba tributaries that are obvious hybrids between redlip and greenhead shiners. Molly Cashner (and others) are still investigating the whole mess and have not published anything yet. And in the SC fish book I take the cowards way out regarding greenhead and yellowfin shiners.

I think it was Cranberry Creek that had the red lips and yellowfins confusion.

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Then we got into somewhere between the Catawba and Broad, which I'm pretty danged sure was the Broad, but I'm not sure which we were in where. Maybe Philip can figure out where we were at. We were south of Hickory, that's all I really know.
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B' Betty, the Hal of the Ichthyotransporter, knows the answer, but she is 130 miles from me. On Sunday, the last official stop was Cathys Creek. Few people got in the water at the last stop. The second from last was Wards Creek, if memory serves me today. Whatever, both are part of the Broad River watershed.

Thanks for taking a look guys! I'll be glad to see what Molly comes up with. What a mess.

Hmmm... So the Wards Creek ones were one of the yellowfins. That was where the bridge was way up high, and Sir Charles was whining that even Long Hair Phil was giving him instructions on what to get from the van, right? Whatever they are, they're all pretty.

Well, I just played with my wife's D70 camera some more. I bought her a Nikon macro lense for Christmas, Birthday, Valentines Day, St. Patricks Day, Easter..... When you're on a budget, this kind of thing has to stretch Anyway, I'm allowed to use it if she's not.

This will totally change the way I photograph at home (no way in hell am I dragging this out into the field). Esp once we get a real flash for it.

In the words of Ferris Buehler:

"If you have the means, I highly suggest getting one."

In the words of Iggy Pop:

"Look out honey, I'm usin' technology."

Perhaps this is the Catawba hybrid?

 mysteryminnow.jpg   28.04KB   5 downloads

Here's the ones I know... Quick run through most of Hydrophlox.

 greenhead_02.jpg   15.52KB   4 downloads
Greenhead Shiner, Notropis chlorocephalus

 greenhead_01.jpg   26.96KB   3 downloads
Greenhead Shiner, Notropis chlorocephalus

 rainbow_shiner_01.jpg   33.51KB   3 downloads
Rainbow Shiner, Notropis chrosomus

 rough_shiner_01.jpg   43.63KB   1 downloads
Rough Shiner, Notropis baileyi

 saffron_01.jpg   25.9KB   3 downloads
Saffron Shiner, Notropis rubricroceus

 redlip_shiner.jpg   23.87KB   3 downloads
Redlip Shiner, Notropis chiliticus

 redlip_shiner_02.jpg   24.56KB   4 downloads
Redlip Shiner, Notropis chiliticus

I'm missing a couple of species and forms, but this is a start, I guess. It'll be nice when I warm 'em back up and they get into the business I can't wait. Maybe by then, I'll figure out how to clean off the glass lol.

Oh and what the heck... Here's some others I just shot.

 orangetail_shiner.jpg   17.94KB   2 downloads
Orangetail Shiner, Pteronotropis merlini

 flagfin_shiner.jpg   18.16KB   1 downloads
Flagfin Shiner, Pteronotropis signipinnis

 bleeding_shiner_01.jpg   30.79KB   1 downloads
Bleeding Shiner, Luxilus zonatus

 creole_darter_01.jpg   36.44KB   0 downloads
Creole Darter, Etheostoma collettei

Well, I hope you enjoyed all that mess of pictures.

Todd

Very Nice! and I've gotta get myself a better camera! By the way I have a single redlip as well and it doesn't just have red lips its entire body is red. I'll probably forget but maybe I'll get a picture tomorrow and post it. I'm prety sure the fish in the Broad are still yellowfins, I used to collect them in the upper Broad about once a year near my aunts in N. GA. I gotta get back down there, I haven't had yellowfins for a couple years now but they have to be one of the most colorful minnows I have ever had.

My goodness, Todd, your photos are outstanding! What kind of camera is that "good camera" of your wife's? Some of those fish must be moving, and yet the photos are beautifully clear!

What kind of camera is that "good camera" of your wife's?

He mentioned it was a Nikon D70.

Those pictures are not as much about the camera he uses but the lens. Macro lenses are designed to photograph small stuff like insects and, in this case, minnows. They do a really good job too, I am jealous for sure. My wife has the D70 but she chose shiny rocks over a macro lens.

Brian, did you get your redlip on the Dan River trip? I'm interested to see the body shape. What's apparent in them to me is that over-slumped upper lip. It's really hard with these fish to ignore the colors and do meristic work

Thanks for your compliments Ed and Brian! As arnoldi says, it's about the lense, not so much the camera. Although, I took the original picture of the redlip shiner (in the first post) with a regular lense and then cropped the fish out of the image. However, with the macro lense, those are the whole images.

The real advantage here is that they're in the tank, behaving as they would in the wild (with the way I have the tanks setup), and I don't have to be underwater to get these pictures. And with this lense, I can sit back away from the tank, where the fish aren't responding to me except to get excited because I mean "food". It was such a PITA to use my 4800 and get these shots. The flash would over expose and be in the shot. The colors were fake looking. But this really compensates for all those hinderances.

Sir Charles is sending me a nice flash... So I can't wait to see what that does. I had to play auto-contrast these particular images in Photoshop. Hopefully I can get it down where it's automatic and I just reduce the size to put them on the web

But it all comes at a price. If we bought all this stuff new...

D70 Body - $1100
Nikon 105mm VR-Micro-Nikor - $800
SB-26 Flash - $200

Seeing individual red scales at screen resolution on Notropis Chiliticus... Priceless.

And even though people have really helped us out on this, we still have spent $1200. So it ain't for everybody. I only got the lense because we just got married and I squandered some of the "house money" for at least something fun

Well I might as well post that too, since this has fish keeping related content. This is our reception before and during a Virginia Reel (we had a string band and did contra dancing instead of the usual "White People Gone Wild" bootielicious and electric slide kind of deal).

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 reel_02.jpg   45.55KB   1 downloads

Todd

There can be only one!

Congratulations on the wedding! Is that a Scottish theme? Forgive me, but I don't see the fish related content in the wedding photos. But I'm glad you posted them, so that we could have the chance to congratulate you.

They mystery shiner in your pic.. whatever it turns out to be, it sure is a handsome devil.

Todd, my redlip is from the upper New River drainage. I wanted to get some MRBD and the group wasn't going to the spot where they got them the day before so we got directions from Gerald and stopped at a spot on our way out of the state. Saw a wonderful spawning cluster of redlip, MRBD, and Roseyside dace over a Nocomis nest. I think I posted some pics some where on here before but I'm not sure, might have been under the convention thread.

Too danged funny Viridari! If you can tie that in with Tom Bombadil, I think I'd be rendered useless with laughter and joy.

Ed, thanks so much No there's nothing fish related in the photo. But it wasn't so much a superferlous post, in that I only post the pictures. Mayb we need a "sump" forum to post such related garbage or something, as this community evolves.

Mystery, yeah I call 'em "purpleheads". They really are attractive and robust for a Notropis minner. He's got that weird parasite there above his left pectoral fin. I dunno what to do about it. Looks like one of the white worm things, keeps getting bigger. Most of those are digenetic aren't they? They don't come out like alien or something... They're hoping the fish gets eaten, right?

I sort of remember that Brian (but then it may be a false memory). I'll do some lookin' around. I'd really like to see what those fish looked like.

Todd

Send me a pm and remind me to post some pictures later tonight... I'll try not to spend the entire evening working on creating my new fish room.

Here's a thread that had picture of both linked from it:

http://forum.nanfa.o...l=redlip shiner

Catch Uland's link to some sweeeet shots in the Yadkin.

http://gallery.nanfa...adkin drainage/

And then a pic about 2/3's down that was Fritz's from Cranberry Creek in the New River. Man is that some collection tank.

You can see how that top lip overhangs in a nub in both. Of course, the Cranberry Creek fish are introduced? It's in the Dan that they're historic? Hrrrmm.

Man I wish we had a picture of the fish from Ward's Creek.

Todd

Ok here are some pics I took this evening of my redlip and some of his tank mates...

Just the Redlip Shiner...
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 redlip.jpg   37.28KB   0 downloads

pair of Bigeye Chub
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Redlip and Gravel Chub
 redlip_and_gravel.jpg   24.04KB   0 downloads

Redlip, trout-perch, and streamline chub
 Redlip_trout_perch_streamline_chub.jpg   39.56KB   0 downloads

Same three plus a slenderhead darter
 redlip_trout_perch_streamline_slenderhead.jpg   32.25KB   0 downloads

Streamline Chub
 streamline.jpg   26.8KB   0 downloads

They are nothing compared to Todds pics but I hope you all enjoy

These are GREAT pictures Brian, what are you talking about?

Okay, so in life color, these are two somewhat different looking fishes, maybe on an order of what we see in Ulocentra darters. I think the hydrophlox are on a similar divergent path as darters... With so much color involved, divergence can theoretically happen quickly, in comparison to some of their cyprinid cousins. It will be very interesting to see what Molly comes up with. I hope they outgroup against subgenus Notropis and Pteronotropis, and that they also cover rubellus and leuciodus. If they don't do it, someone will. This is possibly another subgenus to elevate out of Notropis.

Todd