Hello NANFers,
Attached is a PDF of a recent paper that redescribes the Chesapeake Logperch, for a long, long time was considered Percina caprodes. This is a distinct species that requires our attention and protection!

Best wishes,
Tom

Edited by TomNear, 22 April 2008 - 01:36 PM.

Nice work, Tom. One thing that struck me in the Discussion was your mention that the Susquehanna and Potomac would have to had a direct connection to account for the historic species distribution. Isn't it true that for much of the past several millions of years that the two rivers would have met before current sea level flooded their mouths and formed Chesapeake Bay? That certainly seems to be an easier explanation for species dispersal than some trib capture between the two rivers.

I grew up in lower Montgomery County, MD, in what was probably the historic range, but never encountered a logperch in local streams, which makes sense if this species was last seen in the DC area in the late 1930s. I hope that at least the state of Maryland offers meaningful protection to remaining populations.

Hello Bruce,
That certainly is reasonable, but I did not see any literature that discusses the paleogeogrphy of the lower ends of these two rivers, or predicted size of the Chesapeake Bay, etc.

My reasoning was simply following the discussions of biogeogrpahy in this region that you see in several of the Lee papers cited in my paper. I do not favor a stream capture model over any other viable hypothesis, such as downstream freshwater connections between the Susquehanna and Potomac.

Regardless, the phylogeny that shows a close relationship of P. bimaculata with P. kathae-P. austroperca is pretty interesting for its disjunct pattern.

I just happened to download a few pictures off one of the cameras today and saw these so I thought I would add them into the thread.