The state of West Virginia can now add a new species of fish to the list of the roughly 190 species already identified.
The rare 3-to-5-inch long fish, known as the diamond darter, was discovered to be a new species by Stuart Welsh, an associate professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries Resources Program at the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences in Morgantown. Davis College is a part of West Virginia University.
Officially named Crystallaria cincotta, the translucent-bodied diamond darter was first thought to be a species called the crystal darter, which is normally found in the Mississippi River system.
"Initially, the population was found in 1980," said Welsh. "But at that time, it was recognized as the crystal darter. It wasn't until further genetic studies and my morphological research ("the study of the form and structure of things" -- Webster's Dictionary) that we decided that it was truly a unique species. So, it's been out there for a while. We knew the population was there. The work just had not been done to formally recognize it as a valid species, and that was what was done recently."
The process of certifying the existence of a new species involves taking part in a scientific review. In other words, writing a research paper that gets reviewed by other scientists, a process that can take a couple of years. The end result for Welsh was the recent publication of his work on the diamond darter in the internationally recognized journal of taxonomy called Zootaxa.
When Welsh had to come up with a new name for the fish, he unselfishly chose to name the species Crystallaria cincotta, after fellow naturalist Dan Cincotta.
"Dan Cincotta is a fishery biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources," said Welsh. "He works out of their Elkins operation center. He's been studying fish in West Virginia for about 30 years on that job, and he was also the first to write a paper about the crystal darter. At the time he wrote the paper, it was thought to be a crystal darter, and in his paper he describes the first discovery of it in the Elk River. Since that time, he has put forth a lot of effort to get more information on that species. So, I felt like the right thing to do was to recognize his efforts toward the protection and observation of the species."
The world of the diamond darter, as far as Welsh is aware at this point in time, consists of only a 20-mile stretch of the Elk River near Charleston. The fish seems to be on its own in West Virginia. While its cousin, the crystal darter, is in waters that are connected to the Elk River by way of the Ohio River system, the closest that the crystal darter has been found in relation to West Virginia is in the Wabash River on the Indiana-Illinois border.
The evidence for the diamond darter being a separate and new species came from a genetic study of the fish as well as documentation of the physical differences between the two darter species.
"Some of the morphological differences included a much wider gape with the size of the mouth on a diamond darter being much, much larger than the mouth of a crystal darter," said Welsh. "The diamond darter had a sickle-shaped pelvic fin whereas the crystal darter's pelvic fin was more rounded. And, there was a reduced number of scales on the cheek of the diamond darter relative to the crystal darter."
Welsh predicts that more new species of animals will be found in the Mountain State in the future.
"I expect that there is still quite a few more (undiscovered) species that we have here in West Virginia, that if people will put forth the effort and go out and look, they will eventually find these new species described," said Welsh. "It's very important to recognize what we have out there in our state."
7-day Archive
