Five Natural Hybrid Combinations in Minnows (Cyprinidae)Cross, Frank B. (Frank Bernard)
Science
Five Natural Hybrid Combinations in Minnows (Cyprinidae)
Cross, Frank B. (Frank Bernard)
Cyprinidae
The peritoneum is mottled dark and silvery in the hybrids; it has a
composite of the coloration in the parental species rather than a
blended shade. The intestine has two diagonal loops crossing the ventral
part of the body cavity, and the hindgut lies high in the cavity, along
the left side of the air bladder. In _Campostoma_, the long gut is
transversely coiled around the air bladder, whereas in _Semotilus_ the
gut forms a longitudinal, flattened, S-shaped loop, ventral to the air
bladder.
In the hybrids, the mouth is slightly oblique and nearly terminal. The
lower lip is thick and fleshy, but has only a suggestion of the
projecting mandibular shelf that is unique in _Campostoma_. The upper
lip is uniform in width, not medially expanded as in _S. atromaculatus_.
One of the hybrids lacks barbels, one has a _Semotilus_-like barbel on
the right side only, and one has a vestigial barbel on the right side
and an anomalous barbel that is nearly terminal on the left upper lip.
In coloration, the hybrids lack the spot in the anterior base of the
dorsal fin that is characteristic of _Semotilus_, but each has a
poorly-developed dark lateral band, and a weak basicaudal spot. This
band and spot are usually prominently developed in _S. atromaculatus_
and usually are absent in adults of _C. a. plumbeum_.
In the position and obliquity of the mouth, basic color pattern (diffuse
lateral band and basicaudal spot), and the presence in one specimen of a
nearly terminal, barbel-like structure, the hybrids somewhat resemble
_Hybopsis biguttata_ (Kirtland), which occurs rarely in the Kansas River
Basin. These partial similarities are coincidental, because other
characters of the hybrids make relationship with _H. biguttata_
implausible. The high number of gill rakers (Table 3) and the length and
position of the gut indicate strongly that the three specimens are
hybrids with _C. anomalum_ as one parent; the pharyngeal arches, though
deformed, indicate that the other parental species has two rows of
teeth, with five teeth in the main row. Only _S. atromaculatus_, among
species in the Kansas River Basin, usually has such a dental formula,
and other characters of our three specimens fit expectations in a hybrid
between that species and _C. a. plumbeum_.
Timber Creek, where the three hybrids were collected, is a small,
spring-fed, sandy-bottomed tributary to Scott County State Lake in the
extreme southwestern part of the Kansas River Basin. The stream was less
than 10 feet wide and six inches deep, except in three pools near road
crossings. The hybrids were found in two of these pools, along with
numerous _S. atromaculatus_ and one adult _C. a. plumbeum_.
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