Those who dispute hybrids,

And at worst, it is merely a curiousity, which is why people post pictures of things that just don't look right I just fail to understand why there's so much resistance to identifying "specimen x" as a hybrid maintaing both sets of parent species characteristics instead of a regional variant of a species.

Todd

Eek! Not Hurlbert! Aside from that, sunfish hybrids are certainly curiosities and often happen because of human activities, like the dreaded greengill. Certainly sometimes shiners don't look right either; my skepticism (polite, I hope) is triggered when they're identified as hybrids when, frankly, who knows? I'm not sure I've ever knowingly seen a hybrid cyprinid in the mid-South, or even a hybrid lepomid. That could be my prejudice. I'm working the null hypothesis of "hybrids are much the exception".

Maybe my next band will be Hybrid Cyprinid?

They certainly are the exception. I just think it seems like they're not because we only get "hits" on the fish that are brought home as "what the heck is this" and we don't see the "misses" out in the field of the 449 other sunfish someone caught that day

And I've yet to see a hybrid in any other state besides OH, MI and IN (well, and the hybrid minnow Matt gave me that started this whole mess ).

Part of that is linked to geologic and climatic history... IE the glaciated north is still "working out" the successful genotypes, while the south has maintained successful genotypes that were merely compressed during glaciation. Which to that degree, I don't think the insane diversity in the upper ends of the Mobile drainage is any mistake either, with the relict and severe endemism linked to cold water!

Another part is linked to human disturbance, and that I'm not sampling in lower quality areas when I go abroad. I would imagine I'd readily find green gills if I were to sample that ditch down the street from you guys by Walmart, but I'm too busy making way to someplace sweet to bother with that rabble! lol

And of course your skepticism is polite. I don't sit at home and go "Oooo the Stallsmith and his Anti-Hybrid ways!"

Martin on the other hand...

Todd

Can't we just do some DNA analysis here and quiet this whole thing down?

It seems reasonable to me that this fish a product of regional variation.
Are hybrids really this common? I have my doubts.

You buyin'?



Todd

You buyin'?



Todd

I was about to ask what the typical cost for a DNA test runs. Is there enough supporting DNA background to confirm if a random fish is indeed a hybrid?

I think they figure $20 per sample with all costs involved for their work at the Lake Erie Center. Folks who are doing genetics work, is that a figure that's used on your proposals? Someone please correct me if I've remembered this wrong, I am merely the tissue and zoogeography context messenger in these matters, 'round here.

Anyway... This is for the primers, tech time, and sending the sample off to be read at a lab for $7 a pop. And you have minimums to meet (like you would have sent it in with other samples you were already running). If you're fortunate, and NSF bought the lab you work in the machinery to do the readings, again your cost is down. But it all has a cost somewhere, and is why they figure $20 a sample.

However, keep in mind if you don't have comparisons in Genebank etc (like someone has only done fish of your species in Alabama and Georgia, and you're in Illinois), you're going to have to baseline both potential parent species from your locality (remember all that stuff about gradients of genes?). For any kind of statistical significance (which would still make that Hurlbert guy I mentioned jump up and down screaming and shouting), figure 10 of each.

Yeah. Cheap is relative. You just don't wave your magic genetics wand and have information

Todd

Todd,

"Hybrid" should be considered a last resort in identifications, after you've exhausted the possibility of regional variation. Some folks get so they see hybrids everywhere (this ones 60/40%, that ones 80/20%, etc.) - that's what we should avoid, unless there's solid evidence to the contrary (like in highly disturbed systems or stocked ponds).

Keep in mind that the Lake Erie Center (and other institutions) fund a lot of stuff off of their grants. It's possible to tweak the price a little lower, especially if you have a sequencer on site. It'd still be a little bit of change, though. If you were to do microsats (which for hybrids would tell you a heck of a lot more than mtDNA), you could probably do a decent number of loci for a couple of the purported parentals and the presumed hybrids for ~$150-200.

...but oh, for a magic genetics wand. That would rock almost as much as a time machine!

Cheers,
Dave

I think they figure $20 per sample with all costs involved for their work at the Lake Erie Center. Folks who are doing genetics work, is that a figure that's used on your proposals? Someone please correct me if I've remembered this wrong, I am merely the tissue and zoogeography context messenger in these matters, 'round here...

...Yeah. Cheap is relative. You just don't wave your magic genetics wand and have information

Todd

Dave, I completely agree. In fact I was chuckling to myself last night that here I was arguing for hybrids, set down in front of my tank, and there were all my Ulocentra and Doration darters

In this particular case, however, the three fish in question were captured among a slew of typical redside dace with a small number of southern redbelly dace. While I would be the first to express my excitement at the finding of the "yellow-finned redside dace", I don't think it's a wild proposition to make a determination these specimens are the product of loose gametes floating across the gravel.

And I should also note that I've yet to see any convincing Lepomis hybrids besides the green-gills, which are definately a result of disturbance and a response by two highly tolerant species.

In fact, it was of particular interest to me on my recent trip, driving from very miniatus populations eastward across the Panhandle to where I could almost say something was very punctatus. And I don't recall using the word "hybrid" a single time

What I should have done, in hindsight, was use the opportunity to photograph the gradient. I will be back there in May, though... And this is one of my projects.

Todd

I have seen several other lepomis Hybrids but never in the numbers that you can at times find the blugill x green cross. This could be because I allways pay close attention to lepomis or any sunfish species for that matter. Unfortunately I have only recently began to take pictures of everything so most of these I have no physical evidence so you'll have to take my word for it. I also have never seen a hybrid lepomis outside of ohio but I have done 95% of my fishing/collecting in Ohio so this is likely the reason not that they just arn't out there. The following are a list of the hybrids that I would bet money on based on where they were found, intermeadiate characteristics, and what species I found at the location.

Warmouth X Green sunfish 1 fish Leesville lake in eastern ohio
warmouth X Bluegill 2 fish while electrofishing North reservoir of the portage lakes in akron ohio with the ODNR
Redear X Green sunfish 1 fish that I keep catching at my friends small private pond (if I catch it next summer I'll try to get a pic)
Northern Longear X Green sunfish 1 fish below the harpersfield dam on the grand river (Todd you were there do you remember this fish?)
Central Longear X Green Sunfish 2 fish upper Big Darby Creek
Pumpkinseed x Green sunfish 1 fish mogadoor reservoir in eastern ohio
Redear X Bluegill this is the only other I have seen multiple times (they too are hatchery produced like the bluegill X Green) Portage lakes, mogadoor reservoir, and several private ponds.
Orangespotted X Northern Longear 1 fish blanchard river last summer, and I have a picture of this one! To me this is the oddest one because it is the only one that did not involve a bluegill or green sunfish.


This picture looks terrible, I'll see if my friend I gave this thing too still has it and get a better pic

So my point is they happen but this is all of them in 6-7 years of hunting mainly for sunfish species and keeping 14 different lepomis varieties so they are definately rare with the exception of the two hatchery produced ones I wouldn't say that I could go out looking for them and be gaurenteed to find one. And of those two only the infamous greengill seems to occur widespread on its own with out being stocked.

Years ago i had what appeared to be a very obvious mtn redbelly x rosyside dace cross, from Laurel Fork, trib of New River, Ashe/Alleghany Co NC. Both parent species were very common there, and i only caught this one that looked like a hybrid. Red belly AND rosy slash behind the gill, tiny scales like Phox, large mouth but more horizontal than Clinost. Lateral stripe, eye size, body cross-section, all other macro features looked intermediate between these two spp. He grew as big as a large rosyside (bigger than phox) and had a prominant nuchal hump as an adult. Belligerent attitude like rosyside, NOT the easygoing Phox personality. If i can find that slide again i'll post it. Gerald

Clinostomus of some type. The photo makes it appear to be more dorsoventrally compressed than what I expect from redside dace locally. Rather than hybrid I'd say regional variant like the curator quoted above. Talk is cheap without actually seeing the fish, of course.

I am not sure why hybridization is hard to swallow for so many out there. I am not formally educated, and I may be totally wrong, but it would seem to me that when you have various species all spawning over the same stoneroller, and creek chub nests, that hybridization is fairly likely. Could someone help me to understand why this is unlikely?
I know what a redside dace looks like, and I also am very familiar with southern redbelly dace. I can say with 100% certainty that this fish is not 100% either. If this fish is a regional variant, then this is surely a good fish for taxonomists to take a closer look at.

Hybridization happens (ooh, that'd be a neat shirt design...), but too many people use it as a crutch for things that are just tough to ID or display a lot of natural variation.

In a prior post, someone mentioned that "normal" redside dace weren't taken with the three weirdos. That was the red flag for me. Todd corrected that statement, so yeah, they're more likely to be hybrids. You wouldn't believe the number of times hybridization or introgression gets invoked between things that don't even occur together!!

Cheers,
Dave

I am not sure why hybridization is hard to swallow for so many out there. I am not formally educated, and I may be totally wrong, but it would seem to me that when you have various species all spawning over the same stoneroller, and creek chub nests, that hybridization is fairly likely. Could someone help me to understand why this is unlikely?
I know what a redside dace looks like, and I also am very familiar with southern redbelly dace. I can say with 100% certainty that this fish is not 100% either. If this fish is a regional variant, then this is surely a good fish for taxonomists to take a closer look at.

I agree with you Todd, if you would still like to see any of those journal articles I can get a hold of them.

Marcus

That's the point the earlier morphological and behavioral studies were making and perhaps I should have just stuck with those, although I felt like I was pulling up antiquated information, which isn't necessarily true. What I would really like to see are studies that managed to produce F2's. That may be the next part of research needed on this type of question...............

Thanks so much for the offer Marcus! Actually, this peturbed me enough that I just went ahead and became a paying member (same with the North American Benthological Society... I mean c'mmon!). I should be able to access them on my own shortly!

what is it? Redside dace X what?

The best (most fun!) way to solve this is to go back and get some more samples. If it is a species, there has to be a breeding population and lots more fish that look just like this one. Ideally, you can find redside dace, rosyside dace, and one or two more of these guys from the same stream or vicinity. Then you'll have an interesting story to tell!

Alright. Now that i can see the specimen in the flesh, and close its mouth, etc., i'll have to give due acknowledgement to Todd and Matt and whomever else already knew for sure what it was. Sure enough, Clinostomus elongatus x Phoxinus erythrogaster. The upper jaw overhangs the lower, and yes the mouth is a bit shorter than needed for a redside.

Why do i say elongatus and not funduloides? First there's the body shape. C. elongatus is long and slender, P. erythrogaster round-bodied, C. funduloides deep bodied. This specimen is fairly intermediate between C. elongatus and P. erythrogaster. If this were a cross between C. funduloides and P. erythrogaster we should have a deeper body than for this specimen.

Next the lateral line scales. Simply not few enough to be a cross with C. funduloides, one might perhaps expect a count to fall somewhere between the top 57 for funduloides and the low 70 for erythrogaster, instead the count is around 77.

Sorry for beating a dead horse, but at least i finally got to ascertain for my own elucidation.

Marc

Thanks Marc, for taking the time to ID this fish. Also for explaining what led to your conclusion.

Thanks Marc, for taking the time to ID this fish. Also for explaining what led to your conclusion.

I'll second that, great explanation. Glad to see you on here too.

Brian Z.