Jon, Steven,
Sorry I haven't been in touch - I've been doing some herp work in eastern
colorado, and I don't have email access often.
"Cottus carolinae zopherus" is currently considered a subspecies of banded
sculpin restricted to the upper Coosa and Cahaba River systems. It does look
really different from normal carolinae, because it's not. Based on
mitochondrial DNA data, it's kind of a distant cousin of "real" banded
sculpins. There's a bunch of other undescribed species of sculpins in the
Mobile Basin, some of them have pretty cool color patterns, and some very
restricted ranges.
I'm leaving Colorado and heading back east here in the next week or so- when
I get back to Alabama (and most of my files) I'll try to send you some
stuff. If you don't hear anything from me drop me an email reminder- I'm
also trying to wrap up my dissertation, and and kind of scatter-brained
right now...
Jim and I are working on a lot of the sculpin systematics problems together,
hope to have most of the SE stuff officially described in the next year or
so.
Best,
Dave
At 03:26 PM 9/3/02 -0400, you wrote:
>The sculpin I keep seeing is about 7 inches long, travels in pairs or
threes, tan colored with dark brown bands. it isn't a mottled sculpin or
cottus bairdi. The other species it most resembles is the Pygmy Sculpin
cottus paulus. Except its alot bigger. The fins are rounded and do not
have all those feathery things they are short and trim fins, not long
flowing ones. And their eyes are different than pictures of cottus
carolinae that I have seen. I haven't been able to browse any books, for
lack of book funds. And I am really new at this.
>Can't ya tell?
> Jon
>/
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