Saturday, December 1, 2012

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2012

OBAMA FISH!
Phylum: Chordata
Class    : Actinopterygii
Order  : Perciformes
Family : Percidae
Genus  : Etheostoma
Species: Etheostoma obama


Etheostoma obama is a new fish species! "We chose President Obama for his environmental leadership, particularly in the areas of clean energy and environmental protection, and because he is one of our first leaders to approach conservation and environmental protection from a more global vision," says Steve Layman, who named the new species.

Layman (of Geosyntec Consultants) along with Rick Mayden, Department of Biology at Saint Louis University, studied the freshwater darters, most of which are native to the U. S. states of Alabama and Tennessee.While they were studying color variation of Etheostoma stigmaeum, the Speckled Darter, Layman and Mayden discovered that there were populations with enough variation that they should be described as unique species.


Etheostoma obama males have bright orange and iridescent blue speckles, stripes, and checked patterns, with a bright fan-shaped fin that has orange stripes. The males can reach up to 48 millimetres (1.9 in) long, while the females reach 43 millimetres (1.7 in) long. Twenty-nine percent of the studied fish had palatine teeth. Etheostoma obama is endemic to the Duck River and the Buffalo River, both in Tennessee.

Link: http://www.fishbase.org

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