Nerming . . . found a "new" species

[Fish Folk]

Alrighty then. Watch your step. Ridiculous nermhole to follow.

Got a lovely batch of Notropis chrosomus this week. Very pleased! Getting obsessed. Started nerming . . .

_____________________________________________________________________

Google search:

> Notropis chrosomus

>> Wikipedia “Rainbow shiner” > References

>>> http://www.fishbase.org/summary/2848 > Jordan 1877

>>>> Wikipedia “David Starr Jordan” > References

>>>>> (1877) “Contributions to North American Ichthyology”

>>>>>> Search: notropis chrosomus > Hydrophlox chrosomus

_____________________________________________________________________

So, just to explain here: A Google search has landed me on a fascinating book part-authored by the founding president of Stanford University, who was a passionate ichthyologist. This book "Contributions..." dates from 1877. Here, I observe that "chrosomus" (Latin: "colored body") only occurs in relation the prefix "Hydrophlox" but never "Notropis." Fishbase entry had indicated that "Notropis" was a misnomer.

_____________________________________________________________________

Google search:

> Hydrophlox chrosomus

>> Science Direct > Abstract: “Phylogenetic relationships of the North American cyprinid subgenus Hydrophlox” (Cashner, June, 2011)

>> nanfa.org > “The Chrome Minnow of North America: Keeping and Spawning the Rainbow Shiner ” (Katula, Jan-Mar 2016)

_____________________________________________________________________

Now, the article above by Katula is wonderful. NANFA (North American Native Fish Association) makes archived articles free to read here. These are really fascinating studies, for anyone interested in native North American species. It confirms what I had inferred before that "Notropis chrosomus" used to be called "Hydrophlox chrosomus"  -- and may well have had other names as well between 1877 and 2011. Plus the Katula article is a treasure trove of useful information! But wait for it . . . 

_____________________________________________________________________

> Wikipedia “Notropis” > Scientific Classification / Synonyms > Hydrophlox, Jordan, 1878

>> Related: Notropis rubricroceus (appearing on the Wikipedia webpage for "Notropis"

>>> Wikipedia “Saffron Shiner”

_____________________________________________________________________

And here, fellow nerms, is my exciting find of the day. These North American fish are unbelievably gorgeous, and should be selectively bred and sold more in the US hobby -- as also should Rainbow Shiners. 

> YouTube:

Saffron Shiners on a River Chub Mound

And then there's this . . . which brings up a lot of questions. If the fish below are Rainbow shiners, they are definitely a totally different color morph than the forms commonly sold. Or else, the fish below are mislabeled -- and are actually Saffron shiners (seen above). Except the same video poster also posted _other_ footage of Saffron shiners. I think there really are two color forms of Rainbow shiners: Type A (powder blue on males) and Type B (males are a lot more red)

This other footage below (of Saffron Shiners spawning) shows markedly _yellow_ finnage rather than the power blue. 

And more Saffron Shiners . . . look at this:

And then this:

And there's this ex situ (fishtank) footage:

Ah the life of a nerm during COVID. All too fun not to share . . . these fish are crazy interesting!

[Colu]

Really colourful fish definitely need to be available in the hobby

[FrozenFins]

Now I know what I'll be doing tomorow, thanks fish folk!

Also just a FYI, the Contributions to North American Ichthyology didn't load properly so if you were like me and still wanted to read it but couldn't get it to load, you can download a pdf file here. 

Fish Folk I would encourage you to upload this pdf file to the files tab of the forum:
https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/files 

Edited January 24, 2021 by James Black

[WhitecloudDynasty]

I use to have a few saffron shiner a few years back, didn't have the space and got rid of them. Saffron have a yellow line above their head that runs all the way around the fish. 

The 2nd video are rainbow shiner but they are more orange than red. Wild fish will depend on where are they located at. 

I have greenhead now, here a photo in breeding color. Planning on working with them if I have room this year.

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by WhitecloudDynasty

[WhitecloudDynasty]

Be careful Notropis can cross breed

If its not control it can get out of hand and ruin the species. Unless you plan to keep working with their F1s

[Colu]

Beautiful fish hopefully more people will start to breed them  @WhitecloudDynasty

[David Ellsworth]

The rainbow shiners I have are purple in color and not this bright red. All the videos of them I see online are with them super red or brightly colored. I believe the rainbow shiners color change during spawning times of the year and get super colorful and so that is when everyone films them. 

[Fish Folk]

5 hours ago, WhitecloudDynasty said:

 

I use to have a few saffron shiner a few years back, didn't have the space and got rid of them. Saffron have a yellow line above their head that runs all the way around the fish. 

The 2nd video are rainbow shiner but they are more orange than red. Wild fish will depend on where are they located at. 

I have greenhead now, here a photo in breeding color. Planning on working with them if I have room this year.

 

Awesome! Lots of potential here for the hobby.

[Fish Folk]

5 hours ago, WhitecloudDynasty said:

 

Be careful Notropis can cross breed

 

I was wondering if that might have been why some are more red?

[Fish Folk]

5 hours ago, WhitecloudDynasty said:

 

I use to have a few saffron shiner a few years back

 

Where did you get your stock of saffron shiners? I cannot find any sellers.

[Fish Folk]

7 hours ago, James Black said:

Fish Folk I would encourage you to upload this pdf file to the files tab of the forum:
https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/files 

Done!

[Fish Folk]

The Tennessee Aquarium does really cool stuff. I enjoy their videos on YouTube a lot. Here's a snapshot of a page from their website showing the site locations for Notropis rubricroceus (Saffron shiners).

[Fish Folk]

6 hours ago, WhitecloudDynasty said:

The 2nd video are rainbow shiner but they are more orange than red. Wild fish will depend on where are they located at. 

I've been watching videos from Europe. There seems to be several different color forms. One YouTuber claimed that there is some research being done on whether they are different subspecies -- here is a reply he made: "There is genetic work being done into rainbow shiners to see if different localities represent separate species/subspecies, these are a case of some that may be split." 

This German-language video seems to be just about the best introduction to Rainbow Shiners n the wild:

 

[Fish Folk]

Here's a NANFA chat thread from 2011 about breeding Saffron shiners

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php/topic/11652-breeding-saffron-shiner-notropis-rubricroceus/

[Ryan S.]

Fantastic thread.  I do a bit of nerming on shiners myself and own some rainbows but had never heard of Saffron shiners. I'll have to keep an eye out for any native sellers to carry them.  If anyone sees them, please let us know.  

I think rainbow shiners should be a regular in the hobby.  Even when not fired up, they are a pretty fish that is very fun to watch. 

 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

4 hours ago, Fish Folk said:

Where did you get your stock of saffron shiners? I cannot find any sellers.

I could be wrong but I think they are protected now??. Or it may have been just certain location. Its easier if you join nanfa and then they'll share more information and locations points.

Are there sub species? Maybe. But the one from Europe are all just rainbow shiner, they been working with them longer than we have, but they have alot of deformity. As for more red mine look pretty close view from above also. So I dont know unless I see them in person. 

[Spewing_nonsense_]

Saffron shiners aren’t protected, and actually they’re native to my area and I plan next summer to go collect them just 15 min from my house. I didn’t do it last summer bc I didn’t have a tank for them but I’m looking forward to getting them. I’m just happy to see some light shined on them, but if you wanna see like where certain species are located that are native to North America or see what’s local to your area, you can go to Fishmap.org and it has a lot of collection data from various organizations and projects

 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

16 minutes ago, Spewing_nonsense_ said:

Saffron shiners aren’t protected, and actually they’re native to my area and I plan next summer to go collect them just 15 min from my house. I didn’t do it last summer bc I didn’t have a tank for them but I’m looking forward to getting them. I’m just happy to see some light shined on them, but if you wanna see like where certain species are located that are native to North America or see what’s local to your area, you can go to Fishmap.org and it has a lot of collection data from various organizations and projects

 

Thats pretty cool, thats one reason I wanted to work with greenhead shiner since they are native to my water and I can away go out and collect more...very now and then you'll get 1 that's really nice.

[Fish Folk]

16 minutes ago, Spewing_nonsense_ said:

 

Saffron shiners aren’t protected, and actually they’re native to my area and I plan next summer to go collect them just 15 min from my house. I didn’t do it last summer bc I didn’t have a tank for them but I’m looking forward to getting them. I’m just happy to see some light shined on them, but if you wanna see like where certain species are located that are native to North America or see what’s local to your area, you can go to Fishmap.org and it has a lot of collection data from various organizations and projects

 

That’s awesome! It would be fascinating to collect these if fish & game law permitted. In some states, there’s crazy rules about it... and selling... and keeping... 

Reminded of stories from Wessel and J. Cumming about collecting in Central America, and hiding cichlids in dirty laundry bags to get through customs. 😂

[Zachariah]

Hey all! I'm actually the one studying Rainbow Shiners for my masters research, as well as the rest of Hydrophlox. Saffron Shiners are most often very common where they occur, and I don't believe they're protected anywhere other than Tennessee, where essentially just about everything is protected. The upper conosauga fish indeed differ greatly from those typical in the aquarium trade, the upper mobile basin fish in general have much less of the blue and/or purple iridescence. There's actually three distinct forms, with integrades between those forms in between. We'll hopefully be publishing are morphological and molecular data on this species later this year!

[813aquatics]

I’ve always wondered why so many M American species don’t get a lot of love. We have native killis, flagfish, shiners, gambusi, sailfins, etc that are all great fish but only specialists seem to keep them. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 1/26/2022 at 9:13 PM, Zachariah said:

Hey all! I'm actually the one studying Rainbow Shiners for my masters research, as well as the rest of Hydrophlox. Saffron Shiners are most often very common where they occur, and I don't believe they're protected anywhere other than Tennessee, where essentially just about everything is protected. The upper conosauga fish indeed differ greatly from those typical in the aquarium trade, the upper mobile basin fish in general have much less of the blue and/or purple iridescence. There's actually three distinct forms, with integrades between those forms in between. We'll hopefully be publishing are morphological and molecular data on this species later this year!

When you do get it published, please post a link to the article here.  Online preprint would be great.  Just saying.  😉

And welcome to the forum!

[WhitecloudDynasty]

On 1/26/2022 at 10:13 PM, Zachariah said:

Hey all! I'm actually the one studying Rainbow Shiners for my masters research, as well as the rest of Hydrophlox. Saffron Shiners are most often very common where they occur, and I don't believe they're protected anywhere other than Tennessee, where essentially just about everything is protected. The upper conosauga fish indeed differ greatly from those typical in the aquarium trade, the upper mobile basin fish in general have much less of the blue and/or purple iridescence. There's actually three distinct forms, with integrades between those forms in between. We'll hopefully be publishing are morphological and molecular data on this species later this year!

I didn't even know you was on here! Cool!