A few from southern KY

Josh and I took a chilly trip down to the Livingston area: Rockcastle River and a couple of streams. Found some interesting darters, and got an education in how to go after darters when there's half an inch of ice covering a lot of the streams.

This beautiful bloodfin, from the rockcastle river.



Striped, I believe... little rascal would come to rest next to the one algae glob on the front of the tank.



Greenside actually starting to show some green? Those spots on the dorsal look a little funny. This photo doesn't show them all that well, but they're not the dark spots one normally sees on a greenside, more light brown like on a johnny. What's darterspeak for 'raise your dorsal fin, please'?



This one is a puzzle. I thought it was an orangethroat, what with the white on the dorsal, but now that I look at it up close (and crank up the saturation on the photo a bit to enhance color), well, no that's not what it is. Blue on the anal fin and mouth definitely not right, and the red breaking up into dots looks different. The KDFWR list for that area doesn't show anything like it. I found it on a little spring fed creek that emptied into Crooked Creek (which is fairly large). We worked crooked creek over pretty good, and didn't see anything like this, found two of these but only in that little spring fed creek.

what a patriotic fish, look at that dorsal, the quantity and quality of fish you guys are coming up with is amazing.

Actually, having looked at it some more, I believe that 'greenside' is actually an emerald, starting to show some emerald color... It finally flashed it's dorsal, and there's a red stripe on it.

I'm going to go with Bluebreast darter (E. camurum), not sure because I don't know my barcheeks but looks like a striped (E. virgatum), Longhunt darter (E. doration sp.), and Headwater darter (E. lawrenci).


Bloodfin do not have the margins of color like that on their unpairde fins,. That is definately a doration species and not an emerald or greenside because of the snout, pectoral fins, blue pigment, saddles, and the dorsal fin colors (blue and orange). You were on the right track with orangethroat. I think it was mentioned in a recent KY collection thread, but the only true orangethroats are in direct tributaries to the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Further inland where you typically collect, Cumberland River drainage, you have some endemic members of the orangethroat complex.

NatureServe list for Rockcastle River

My vote is as follows.

1. Male Bloodfin
2. Female Bloodfin, John I know we collected some Stripes..are you sure this is one? It's hard to tell by that photo. It looks like a female bloodfin to me.
3. Male Channel Darter
4. Unknow, still a puzzle to me.

Okay check out these pictures to go along with my identifications.

This is a bloodfin darter Bloodfin darter. Lacks the striped pigment on the fins, has red pigment along the margins of the tail fin, and typically has a vertical bar under the eye.
This is a bluebreast, which is what John has in picture 1 (male) and 2 (female).Bluebreast male and female
This is a Speckled darter, which is the Doration member from much of the Tennessee drainage. John is showing the undescribed Doration from the upper Cumberland drainage given the common name Longhunt darterSpeckled darter
I cannot find my headwater darter (formerly orangethroat) pictures at the moment. I believe this picture is of a Headwater darter by Dave Neely because the location is correct for that orangethroat member. All prior pictures are in Todd Crails gallery and are from locations he and I collected fish, fish I provided, or places I have been to and he later visted.

Okay check out these pictures to go along with my identifications.

This is a bloodfin darter Bloodfin darter. Lacks the pigment on the fins.
This is a bluebreast, which is what John has in picture 1 (male) and 2 (female).Bluebreast male and female
This is a Speckled darter, which is the Doration member from much of the Tennessee drainage. John is showing the undescribed Doration from the upper Cumberland drainage given the common name Longhunt darterSpeckled darter
I cannot find my headwater darter (formerly orangethroat) pictures at the moment. Dave Neely has one in his gallery but I do not want to link to it directly. All prior pictures are in Todd Crails gallery and are from locations he and I collected fish, fish I provided, or places I have been to and he later visted.

I thought bloodfin because the head of the fish, especially the cheeks don't match up. But it could be. I've got one in my tank, let me see if I can get a good pic.

The second photo I originally thought bluebreast as well, but I have one in my tank, and it again just doesn't match up.

Good call on the Speckled. When I first saw the photo, I thought that as well. However, since I was there catching these same fish I thought it was a channel (in person). If that is a speckled, I wish I would have kept one myself.

Bluebreast and bloodfin darters both belong to the same subgenus, which is why they have similar body shapes, especially snout. Members of that subgenus are pretty distinguishable from one another. The second picture is no doubt a female bluebreast. You could literally cut the head off that fish/picture and superimpose it on the first one. You can see the pigment similarities in the second dorsal fin also. I'm not sure channel darters have ever been found in the Rockcastle. The Green River mainstem yes, but the Rockcastle just isn't really the right place, at least not where I've been in the Rockcastle. Darters of the genus Percina (like channel) have modified scales in the middle of their belly and honestly channels are pretty drab as far as darters go. Your Doration sp. has some pretty defined pigments and saddles.

I agree, the first darter is a bluebreast darter (Etheostoma camurum) or more accurately (Nothonotus camurus).

As for the others, I wish I was more familiar with fishes of Kentucky.

Blake

Blake you have a great female bluebreast picture on your blog. The one pictures from KY just looks a little gaunt, but comparison with yours just further confirms it's a lady.

Couple of more shots I got this evening. That dusky has to go - it kept getting in the way, and it has been getting obnoxious lately. Anyone want a nice big 4.5" dusky with an attitude?

Finally got this one to spread it's dorsal. So this is a bluebreast? Okay, I've boosted the saturation a bit to amplify color, looks like it has a blue breast.



The female? Thought it was a striped at first because of the stripes



Speckled?

I need to get the photo of mine up to see if it's a bluebreast as well. I thought it was a bloodfin at first.

I totally agree with the 3rd being a Speckled. I swear those did not have that much color when we pull them out of the river. They were actually plain and kinda looked like a Johnny when we were catching them. I wish I would have kept one, I'd love to see their breeding colors in person.

John, did that Speckled have that much color when you caught it? All the ones I caught were kinda plain yellowish.

Nope, it looked like a Johnny or possibly an emerald when I found it. As I lost my last emerald and have only one johnny right now, I thought a couple more wouldn't hurt, so I brought back two of them. And there were plenty more in the rockcastle, no shortage of them for sure. Keep in mind that I've boosted saturation a bit on that photo to bring out the color, and applied considerable sharpening to bring out detail. Even in the tank now, it's so small that the colors are hard to make out. All you can see is the red stripe on the fin and the emerald patches, which got me to thinking that maybe I was seeing an emerald darter that was actually emerald for a change. But those spots on the fins just weren't right for an emerald.

Wasn't until I looked at the photos of the bluebreast that I could really make out the blue breast. Went back to look at them in the tank, sure enough there's some blue on the bottom.

So did you find the two bluebreasts in the riffles? I found the one in a pool just off of the riffles.

Darn, these little rascals are turning out to be difficult to identify. Just when you think you have a handle on some basic ID's, they throw you a curve ball. Then again, that's what makes finding them so fascinating. I can see why people get a doctorate in the subject. I'm finding that ID'ing a darter by photographs only is highly subjective (do I hear some chuckling from the pros?), as the darters themselves can vary in coloration depending upon their mood. Plus, you have the characteristics of the photograph, just backlit versus front lit will alter the perceived photo considerably. Physical characteristics first, then start looking at color, and let them settle down in the tank for a day or two before judging color.

I should follow what I tell the people around me as regards object design in software - don't be so hasty to leap to conclusions. Get back to basics, establish a firm foundation. Miss one detail and the entire design can be invalidated.

Definitely a male and female bluebreast (I certainly have sampled my fair share of these) and then something from the speckled darter group and the I agree with Matt on the orangethroat creature being a headwater darter. I have collected the headwater darter a couple of times and they look very different than orangethroats, much nicer colors in my opinion.

Okay, got from another source as well, it's a headwater darter E. Lawrencei, not categorized until 2002. A variation on the orangethroat, and yes it's prettier, mine appears to have a blue throat. It all fits now, they're found largely in spring fed creeks, but not in larger streams, which is exactly where I found it. I have another one that may be a female - same colors on the dorsals, but a more mottled appearance, no red stripes. Or maybe another spectabile variation...

That was a strange stream. It looked like darter heaven - packed with snails and the little shrimp like crustaceans that also can be found in the big spring on my farm. You would think it would be jam packed with darters, but all I could find was a few of these and the omnipresent banded sculpin.

That's what I said . John, those headwater streams don't support the diversity as a larger stream does for many reasons. What you describe sounds normal for a small headwater, spring fed stream; sculpin and an orangethroat variant typically represent your benthic species. Sometimes it's just sculpin. It sounds like you just have a female necause the different orangethroat variants do no overlap.

I'm slow, but I'm learning... who would have thought there was so much to learn about such a little fish? Kind of addicting, in a way.

Speaking of sculpins, those little rascals are determined migrators. I've found them in tiny spring fed streams that even the darters shun. On my own farm, with a fairly large spring, banded sculpins somehow got past a 2' waterfall to get into the headwaters of that spring.

Edited by JohnO, 26 November 2008 - 10:11 PM.

This is a nuptial headwater darter from an unnammed trib to Trammel Creek, Barren River drainage.

 headwaterdarter.jpg   33.31KB   2 downloads

It's overexposed, sorry about that, I had a LOT of camera trouble on that trip.

Todd

edit: Just saw Dave's pic Matt posted. I didn't read the whole thread carefully. Not trying to out-do anyone, that pic was better, just overlooked it

Edited by farmertodd, 27 November 2008 - 10:00 AM.

Just surfing the NANFA site and noticed this thread. John's original photo from the Livingston/Rockcastle area is E. lawrencei, the Headwater darter, which is found in the Green River system upstream of the Barren, and also in the Cumberland River system upstream from the Caney Fk (with a few exceptions). Todd's photo is E. kantuckeense, the Highland Rim darter (endemic to the Barren River). Matt's link to the Elkhorn Creek orangethroat (Kentucky River) is not E. lawrencei but rather another undescribed member of the species complex that I am naming the Thoroughbred darter (this species is endemic to the Kentucky River system exclusive of the Dix River, which has its own endemic -- the Sheltowee darter). Hope this helps. -- Pat

Thanks so much Pat, great to hear from you! It's funny you poked in here, the other day I was thinking I should get ahold of you and see where the remainder of the complex stood. In another thread, someone had mentioned the "20 or so species of orangethroat darters", and I thought it would be hugely helpful for NANFAns to have a thread in "Darters and Perches" titled "E. spectabile Complex" or something like that, that list the names, general distributions, and then members could post photos that correspond. Perhaps you'd have a little time to work with me on that? OR just post the general info, and we'll fill in the rest? I think that would be pretty awesome, but I do understand if you're short of time

Thanks again,
Todd