Both fish were known to anglers and scientists already, but the extensive specimen collection and DNA analysis to find out if they were hybrids or distinct species has been years in the making. <\/p>\n
Bud Freeman, the lead author of the research and an emeritus faculty member with the University of Georgia\u2019s Odum School of Ecology, first encountered Bartram\u2019s bass in the late 1980s shuttling rafters on the Broad River outside Athens. <\/p>\n
Freeman said he picked up a couple who had been paddling and fishing. He asked them what they\u2019d caught, and the man flipped open a cooler to reveal a Bartram\u2019s sitting on top of the ice. Freeman said he immediately recognized it was different from the largemouth bass also found in the Broad: Bartram\u2019s are smaller, their sides are patterned with black blotches and spots, and their fins often have a rosy, pink tint. <\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018My goodness \u2026 I\u2019d give you five bucks for that fish,\u2019\u201d Freeman recounted. \u201cThey said, \u2018No, we\u2019re taking it home to eat it.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
The Altamaha bass is also on the smaller side, but is distinguished by dark spots that extend to its tail and the orange coloration on its fins. Calliurus, the second part of its species name, comes from a Greek word meaning \u201cbeautiful tail,\u201d Freeman said. <\/p>\n
Both species are likely at least 1 million years old, Freeman said, meaning they emerged hundreds of thousands of years before modern Homo sapiens. That these ancient fish still exist today \u201cshould be sobering,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
But their continued survival is not guaranteed. <\/p>\n
Like other species, they face new threats from human activity and development, which can shrink their habitat and diminish water quality, Freeman said. Interbreeding with other bass species is also a problem, Robinson from Georgia DNR said. <\/p>\n
In some parts of their habitats, non-native Alabama bass have been introduced by humans eager to stock their local waterways with fish. But cross-pollination between the species can muddy the genetics, potentially putting the lineages in peril. <\/p>\n
Robinson said they still see genetically pure Bartram\u2019s and Altamaha bass in places where streams have not been disturbed or exposed to invasives. He said anglers can help protect the species by not spreading Alabama bass and other bass to waterways where they don\u2019t belong. <\/p>\n
For Freeman, identifying the species was the culmination of a yearslong effort \u2014 one he said would not have been possible without the help of many other researchers, including his wife and fellow ichthyologist, Mary Freeman. \u201cIt brings a sense of relief and accomplishment,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Both fish were known to anglers and scientists already, but the extensive specimen collection and DNA analysis to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-112408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}