Hi Folks!

Well, I thought I'd be able to do a better job of keeping up with the Newsletter/Blog.....but. Work just gets in the way, I suppose!

As usual, this time of year is one of our busiest. The weather has been a little more cooperative, but still we've had to spend alot of days dodging thunderstorms.

Things in the hatchery have been....well... mixed. We have had our diamond darters, Crystallaria cincotta, spawn for us. We have five individuals in the hatchery. I have posted a couple videos on our Youtube link. That's the good news! The bad news is that we have had very few viable eggs produced and no larval survival so far! We are learning things, as usual. But these guys still remain somewhat of a mystery to us. One thing of interest, the larvae! They look like little monsters! They have a mouth full of sharp teeth!

Crystallaria cincotta (photo Crystal Ruble)

Scarry Huh! Crystal has even wondered if maybe these guys feed on other larval fish? Hopefully we will have other chances with them. But, for now, be sure to check out the video. There are two, one with a black and white "lipstick" cam and one with a hand-held video.

Many of our fish are producing good numbers of eggs and larvae now. I'll try to get better about updating these!

One of the coolest things in  field work this year was seeing both boulder darters and spotfin chubs in Shoal Creek. Keep in mind that this was shortly after the floods that hit the Nashville area! The creek had gone from a couple hundred cubic feet per second (CFS) flows to over 50,000 CFS in a day! One of the three highest levels ever measured there! It was encouraging to see that our fish hadn't been all swept away!

OK, I promise I'll try to do better about keeping this current! Hope your summer goes well!

J. R. Shute