B Spring 2015 American Currents 10 MINNESOTA FISHES: JUST HOW MANY SPECIES ARE THERE ANYWAY? Jay Hatch Dept. of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning and James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota INTRODUCTION FIGURING OUT THE COUNT In terms of fish diversity, for a state at the northern edge and Were they ever really here? halfway between the east–west extremes of the contiguous On the surface, this one appears pretty simple, but it can USA, Minnesota doesn’t do badly. Of the five states and two cause way more gray hairs than you might think. For ex- Canadian provinces bordering it, only Wisconsin boasts as ample, what do you do if Minnesota’s ichthyological fore- many or more species. We (my fish biology colleagues and )I fathers—like Albert Woolman and Ulysses Cox—reported believe this is true, but counting species is not quite as easy species such as the Chestnut Lamprey (Icthyomyzon casta- as it seems. You’re asking: What could be easier? Just find out neus) from the Minnesota River basin or the Longnose Gar if a fish species swims in your lakes or streams, then count it, (Lepisosteus osseus) from the Red River of the North basin right? Well, as they used to say in the Hertz rental car com- (see Figure 1 for Minnesota’s 10 major basins), but no one mercial, “not exactly.” else has ever collected these species in those basins over the What kinds of issues lead to “not exactly?” Quite a few, last 120 years? Look at the specimens, right? Good luck; including the uncertainty of old or historical records, the they no longer exist. You might entertain the notion that the uncertainty of the presence of rare species, difficulty in as- Chestnut Lamprey was misidentified, especially given that sessing the reproductive status of rare or invading species, the similar Silver Lamprey (Ichthyomyzon unicuspis) is an questions of what to do about failed introductions, the issue inhabitant of the Minnesota River, but how could they mis- of species that occur only across the border in a shared body identify gar? A Longnose might have been called a Short- of water, and last—but not least—difficulties in determin- nose, or vice versa, but no gar of any species has ever been ing what a species is. Often, two or more of these issues in- verified from the Red. Was it a really bad day? A smudge of tersect for a given species, making it even harder to decide the pencil? We will probably never know for sure. So, with- whether or not to count it. Depending on how such issues out specimens to examine, following in the boot steps of our are resolved, the total count for Minnesota could be as low as mentors, my colleagues and I choose not to list these species 153 or as high as 164 species. The potential impact on counts in these basins. “No specimens, no ✓” seems like a good rule. within major basins or smaller river systems can be similarly Then we have the Silver Chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana), high. Let’s look at some examples. again clearly on the state list, but never listed for the Mis- Photos by Konrad Schmidt unless otherwise indicated. sissippi Headwaters basin. There was a single collection by F. Washburn from Lake Mille Lacs in 1886. Unable to lo- Jay Hatch is H.T. Morse Distinguished Teaching Professor in cate the specimen, Eddy and Underhill (1974) did not count the College of Education and Human Development and Re- search Associate in the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural it. We think we have located Washburn’s specimen at the PhotosHistory by at thethe authorUniversity unless of otherwiseMinnesota. indicated. He began studying en- U. S. National Museum, but have not yet examined it. Obvi- vironmental impacts on Midwestern fishes in 1971 with James ously, we cannot count it until we’ve verified it—except that Gammon at DePauw University and later with David Etnier in in 1989 Konrad Schmidt (NANFA Fellow) collected three his capacity as consultant for WAPORA, Inc. He completed a specimens from the Crow Wing River just where it enters PhD in 1982 with James Underhill at the University of Minne- the Mississippi, which is well into the Headwaters basin. So, sota, working on the natural history of darters. After teaching we can definitely count it, right? Well, no. We are sure of briefly at Macalester College in St. Paul, he returned to the Uni- versity of Minnesota, where he has been for the past 32 years. He the identification this time, but we can’t find Konrad’s speci- was Associate Curator of Fishes in the Bell Museum from 1986 mens either. Ouch! No specimens, no √—at least not yet. So through 2006. far, pretty simple. Just to make you as crazy as I am, here are A 11 American Currents Vol. 40, No. 2 but they have no impact on the overall state count. There are plenty of Bluegill, Longnose Gar, Chestnut Lamprey, and even Silver Chub elsewhere in the state. However, there are three cases that affect the state count. Let’s start with the very appropriately named Ghost Shiner (Notropis buchanani) (Figure 2A). It was reported Lake of the Woods 35 times from the Mississippi River between 1944 and 1953, and Rainy River but strangely never again. The collectors included John Ap- pelget, John Greenbank, Ray Johnson, Melvin Monson, and Red River of the North Lake others. These guys were sharp and probably knew what they Superior had, and fortunately George Becker (Fishes of Wisconsin) found and examined three specimens from Pool 7 that were Mississippi cataloged at UW-Stevens Point. Our initial attempts to ex- Headwaters St. Croix amine these specimens or to locate any others from the hey- River day of this species in Minnesota failed. Then in 2010 Bob Hrabik—A Field Guide to the Fishes of Nebraska and new edition of The Fishes of Missouri, both forthcoming—lo- cated and verified the Stevens Point specimens. Somewhat Minnesota later, Wisconsin’s current fish guru, John Lyons, told Konrad River Schmidt that the collections from the Mississippi River sur- Mississippi veys were in the uncataloged materials of the University of Southeast Des Moines Wisconsin Zoological Museum. He kindly allowed Kon to Missouri River Cedar rummage through them and, sure enough, there they were, River River worse for the wear but definitely Ghost Shiners (they have all now been cataloged into UWZM). So, this species was Figure 1. Locations of the 10 major basins in Minnesota (map by Nick Proulx, Minnesota Department of Natural Resouces). in Minnesota and not just in Pool 7, but apparently it is now extirpated (we’ll revisit this one under “Are they still here?” two more examples in this category. No specimen, no re- below). Count it as historical! cord, right? Well, in the Des Moines River basin, we have 64 Now comes a complicated case, the Blue Catfish (Icta- records of Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) from 15 different lurus furcatus) (Figure 2B). To be sure, we have no speci- lakes and 2 streams. These fish were collected in 23 different mens, so why even bring it up? Well, Ulysses Cox started years between 1955 and 2012. They were collected and iden- the cobble tumbling through the riffle by listing Ameiurus tified by at least 11 different biologists, including many DNR lacustris, the “Great Fork-tailed or Mississippi Cat,” in his biologists, Konrad Schmidt, and James Underhill (author of 1897 Fishes of Minnesota. He admitted he had “no definite Northern Fishes and Fishes of the Minnesota Region). Add to record of occurrence of this fish in Minnesota,” but he also this evidence the fact that the Bluegill is vouchered widely in acknowledged that “dark slaty-blue” cats “reaching a weight all nine remaining major basins of Minnesota, and we find of one hundred pounds or more” had been reported by “fish- it rather ridiculous not to acknowledge its presence in the ermen,” which we believe included both anglers and com- Des Moines. A similar example is the Bowfin( Amia calva) mercial fishers. Yes, Channel Catfish (I. punctatus) have in the Rainy River basin. We have 140 records reported by deeply forked tails and can be slaty-blue, but do they weigh dozens of biologists going back to 1950. They come from 38 over 100 pounds? Flathead Catfish (Pylodictis olivaris), yes. lakes and two streams in the Big Fork River system, mostly But Flatheads don’t have deeply forked tails and slaty-blue in the southern portion. We’re not prepared to say how they color, and even record-setting Channel Cats in our stretch got there (they were introduced into Lake of the Woods in of the river struggle to reach 40 pounds. The largest ever re- 1984—see Stewart and Watkinson, 2004), but it is absurd to ported anywhere is only 58 pounds (from South Carolina). conclude they are not there (I note that specimens collected So, were fishers exaggerating? Likely, but more than double in the Baudette and Grand Rapids areas will soon be cata- the weight? Further, by 1943 enough of these reports had loged). There are several other basin-specific species that fall accumulated so that Samuel Eddy and Thaddeus Surber in into this category. their first edition ofNorthern Fishes stated, “It [Blue Catfish] The examples we’ve considered so far affect the number is frequently taken during the warmer months of the year of species attributed to a basin (and that is very important), from Lake Pepin southward in the Mississippi River.” (They A Spring 2015 American Currents 12 that it once occurred in the “Mississippi River north to St.