Subterranean Fishes of the World

3225

2013

AIM 2013

In this presentation I look back 45 years to the way we did field work in the 20th Century, culminating in the big Astyanax paper by Mitchell, Russell, and Elliott, 1977. This ecological/ hydrological/biological paper has been an important source of information to many cavefish researchers. If only GPS had existed back then! We did not discover Mexican topographic maps until the late 1970s! I started caving as a University of Texas biology student in 1967. Soon I was collecting invertebrates and mapping caves in Texas and Mexico. Bill Russell taught me how to map caves, and James Reddell amazed me when he reported that some of my inverts were new species. I was recruited by Dr. Robert W. Mitchell to attend grad school at Texas Tech University, and join his research on Astyanax cavefishes. I started this work for Bob in the summer of 1969. Don Broussard, Jim McIntire and I spent six weeks working in many caves around Ciudad Valles in the Sierra de El Abra. A number of cavers and biologists joined us. We also descended into Bee Cave near the northern end of the cavefish range, Chamal area, Sierra de Guatemala, near Ciudad Mante. Our task was to map cavefish caves and collect fish. During this work I discovered a new species of troglomorphic cave scorpion while mapping Sótano de Yerbaniz. I earned my MS and PhD under Bob Mitchell. I have studied many aspects of cave biology. My career also took me to caves in Belize, many western states, Alaska, and finally Missouri. I have not been in the El Abra since 1974, or the northern range of Astyanax cavefish since 1981. I will share my ideas on what ought to be done to further research on these cavefishes. I also will show you some of my work on biogeography, biodiversity, conservation, and bats. We have three cavefish species in Missouri, including the amblyopsids Ambyopsis rosae, Typhlichthys subterraneus, and an interesting “cave sculpin,” Cottus sp., that is evolving sympatrically, some think, from a surface form. I recently posted a pdf of Mitchell, Russell, and Elliott on my new website, http://mocavelife.com/ for you to download. I hope it will help you in your work!

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