Re: NANFA-L-- Help with fish ID, please

Michael Sandel (kwksand-in-yahoo.com)
Fri, 7 Apr 2006 06:50:28 -0700 (PDT)

I agree. The two white caudal spots and mouth position also give it away. The hogsucker mouth seems to be less "underslung". Great photos, by the way.

mike whitfield <mdwfield-in-comcast.net> wrote: Looks like a torrent sucker to me. I can't tell too much about the mouth.
If it is a semi-circle (viewed from below), then it's a hogsucker, probably
Roanoke. Also, hogsuckers have a very distinctive head when viewed from
front - very wide for the fish's size. On the other hand, if its mouth is a
shallow arc, then it's probably a torrent sucker, which are (I think) native
to the general area.

Mike Whitfield

"My plans for world domination have encountered a momentary setback. Talk
amongst yourselves." -Bucky D. Katt

"Little children who could neither walk nor talk were running about in the
streets cursing their maker." - Sir Boyle Roche

----- Original Message -----
From: "lstaunt"
To:
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 8:23 PM
Subject: NANFA-L-- Help with fish ID, please

> I'm new to observing native fish and also new to this email list, so
please
> bear with me...
>
> I'm having trouble identifying a fish I came across this weekend and am
> hoping someone here can help me.
>
> The fish is about 2" long, and I found it in the Robinson River in the
Syria
> area of Madison County, Virginia. I'm not sure whether this factoid
matters,
> but the stream is one stocked with trout by the state that same weekend.
>
> It was located in slow-moving, shallow (4-6" give or take), rocky water
> along with darters, sculpins, lampreys, and crayfish. I saw two more in a
> deeper pool (2-3') next to the shallow water. They appeared to be the same
> size.
>
> The fish has what I believe is a sucker sort of a mouth with a fat lower
lip
> that is shaped sort of like a W. I scooped him out of the water with a
> little net and placed him in a critter keeper with some rocks from the
> stream and got a couple photos of him. The picture of his mouth isn't the
> greatest, but hopefully it shows the W shape I mentioned above. He also
> appears to have little flaps of skin in front of his eyes that I didn't
> notice until I was posting the photos a few minutes ago. If I'd realized
> they were there, I would have tried to get better photos of them before I
> put him back.
>
> The whole fish from the side:
>
>
> The mouth and the possible eye flap (which I believe I can also see in
other
> photos on both sides of his head)
>
>
> The fish from above:
>
>
> I tried using the species list for Madison County from the VAFWIS site and
> the VA Tech Virtual Aquarium site as well as a couple other internet
> resources and have failed miserably to come up with an ID that I'm
> comfortable matches. I also tried using google images to look up the
various
> suckers and jumprocks and such reported in VA (as I thought they seemed
the
> most likely suspects). Also looked-in-lots of native fish pictures on
other
> websites, including links from this email list. Being a newbie-in-this,
> though, I'm sure I'm missing something obvious and am hoping the members
of
> this list will recognize him immediately or-in-least be able to point me
in
> the right direction to ID him.
>
> Thank you in advance for any assistance you can offer.
> Lou
> Madison, VA
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
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/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
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