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Biodiversity Blog

 
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The Texas Trout

The Texas Trout

Today the only member of the family Salmonidae (trout, salmon and their relatives) that occurs in Texas is the non-native Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. That species is widely stocked around the state and there is one permanent population in McKittrick Creek, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, where it was introduced in the early 1900s. However...

Trout of Mexico's Sierra Madre

Picture1   Young Dean, reading to go fishing with dad... Like many others I'm sure, I found that working from home facilitated catching up on housecleaning, etc. Picking away at the long-standing task of re-housing old family photos, I came across one of me heading out trout fishing with my Dad.  It got me reflecting on what a big role ...

Fish Collection Expands with TPWD

shelvesA quick overview of 15 years of UT Fish Collection growth and collaborations with Texas Parks and Wildlife by Dean A. Hendrickson, Adam E. Cohen, Gary P. Garrett   As stated in the Biodiversity Center’s Collections webpage, the challenges for our collections are to: 1) “document biodiversity,” 2) “understand how biological processes...

Creatures of Halloween: Widemouth Blindcat (Satan eurystomus)

WidemouthBlindcatBy Dean Hendrickson (Curator, Ichthyology Collection) and Nicole Elmer    Satan eurystomus (Photo: Garold Sneegas) In our last Halloween posting, the scorpionfly donned orange, black, and yellow. The species in this blog’s focus is pale and pink. This is Satan eurystomus, also known as the Widemouth Blindcat, a cave catfish, known...

FEATURED SPECIES: Rio Grande Chub (Gila pandora)

Gpandora   Illustration by Joseph R. Tomelleri   The only member of this minnow genus known from Texas, the Río Grande Chub, Gila pandora (Cope, 1872), lives in about a dozen sites in Río Grande tributaries of New México, and Colorado, and in one highly isolated, one mile-long section of a small stream in the Davis Mountains o...

Native Fish Conservation and the Fishes of Texas Project

Picture1By Gary Garrett (Ichthyology Collection)  Native fish conservation areas of Texas. Freshwater fishes and the ecosystems they depend upon are experiencing massive degradation on a global scale. The American Fisheries Society estimates that around 40% of the freshwater fishes in North America are imperiled. Our studies show that in Texa...

ULM fish specimens come to Biodiversity Collections

TulaneBy Adam Cohen, Melissa Casarez and Dean Hendrickson (Ichthyology Collection) Some of ULM's Texas holdings that are now at UT's Biodiversity Collections. Photo taken at Tulane prior to packing In spring of 2017, administrators at the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM, historically NLU – Northeastern Louisiana University) made the dec...

Fish Collection Finishes Survey of the Little River

mapby Adam Cohen, Melissa Casarez, and Ryan Rash Figure adapted from Dennis Rose's thesis showing the major streams in the Little River Basin. Staff from the Biodiversity Center’s fish collection (home of the Fishes of Texas Project) recently teamed up with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s River Studies Program (TPWD) &n...

American Eels in the Fish Collection

Adam eel copy (CLICK ON PHOTO FOR VIDEO) Pulling eels out of a bucket of ice water demonstrates how difficult eels are to hold and not to mention their ability to produce copious slime. The Biodiversity Center’s Ichthyology Collection is working with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to document and study American Eels in Texas with the primary aim be...

Featured Species: Fishes of Waller Creek and the Invasive Variable Platyfish (Xiphophorus variatus)

IMG 7504by Adam Cohen (Ichthyology Collection Manager) and Dean Hendrickson (Curator of Ichthyology)   For the last 25 years, the Hendrickson Lab has been monitoring the fishes of Waller Creek, on the UT campus as well as the surrounding vicinity. Their specimen collections have usually included UT students, the public, or local schools, illustr...
Featured Species: Redfin Pickerel (Esox americanus)

Featured Species: Redfin Pickerel (Esox americanus)

by Dr. F. Douglas Martin The Grass or Redfin Pickerel, often referred to by fishermen as “jacks” or “jackfish,” has a wide distribution occurring from southern Quebec to Florida and from the East Coast to the Brazos River drainage in Texas and the Missouri River in Nebraska.  While smaller than its cousins, the Northern Pike and Muskellun...

Social Media Leads Researchers to New Eel Discoveries in Texas

DSCN0161   American eels This was written by Nicole Elmer, Melissa Casarez, and Dean Hendrickson Citizen-science and social networking outreach efforts often yield benefits for researchers. This is no more evident than here in the University of Texas’ Hendrickson Lab (home of the Fishes of Texas project) with a recent surprising discovery of...
Featured Species - Pecos Pupfish (Cyprinodon pecosensis)

Featured Species - Pecos Pupfish (Cyprinodon pecosensis)

This species was once one of the most abundant fishes in the Pecos River, but is now restricted to Salt Creek in Texas and just a few locations in New Mexico due to hybridization with Sheepshead Minnow (C. variegatus) and groundwater pumping. As a result, it is classified as Threatened in Texas. It has a wide tolerance for physiochemical factors su...
Featured Species - Toothless Blindcat (Trogloglanis pattersoni)

Featured Species - Toothless Blindcat (Trogloglanis pattersoni)

  The Toothless Blindcat, Trogloglanis pattersoni, is one of two highly cave-adapted eyeless and depigmented catfishes known only from the deepest parts of the Edwards Aquifer under San Antonio, TX. Specimens from its humanly inaccessible habitat have come only from a few very deep city water wells near the area of the aquifer where salin...