Carr said that about catfish?

[Garrison Hilliard]

A BIODIVERSITY 'SCAVENGER HUNT'
from Newsday

In his 1941 guidebook, "Key to Fishes of Alachua County, Florida," noted
conservation biologist Archie Carr wrote, "Any damned fool knows a catfish."

If he were alive today, Carr might have been surprised to learn that there
are now 2,855 species of the ubiquitous whiskered catfish known from around
the world, representing one out of every four types of freshwater fish. But
Larry Page, an ichthyologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville,
estimates that another 1,000 to 2,000 catfish species remain to be
discovered, suggesting that we are much more foolish than Carr's 60-year-
old declaration would seem to indicate.

An ambitious project funded by the National Science Foundation is seeking
to fill in the gaps by directing Page and three other teams of researchers
to create comprehensive biological inventories of four eclectic taxonomic
groups: catfish, plant bugs, slime molds and plants in the nightshade
family.
http://snurl.com/2x6p

[mrdancer]

"Garrison Hilliard" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> A BIODIVERSITY 'SCAVENGER HUNT'
> from Newsday
>
> In his 1941 guidebook, "Key to Fishes of Alachua County, Florida," noted
> conservation biologist Archie Carr wrote, "Any damned fool knows a
catfish."
>
> If he were alive today, Carr might have been surprised to learn that there
> are now 2,855 species of the ubiquitous whiskered catfish known from
around
> the world, representing one out of every four types of freshwater fish.
But
> Larry Page, an ichthyologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville,
> estimates that another 1,000 to 2,000 catfish species remain to be
> discovered, suggesting that we are much more foolish than Carr's 60-year-
> old declaration would seem to indicate.

Most non-scientists believe there are several different blue and flathead
catfish in the USA. These notions are fueled by localized names for the
critters, such as (for blues) humpback, government, highfin, etc. and (for
flatheads) shovelhead, yellow cat, opeleusa, appaloosa, mudcat, etc. These
same folks will ridicule you if you point out that all of those blues and
flatheads are of their own respective species... don't confuse them with
facts!

On a more scientific note, does anyone know if they have settled on the Rio
Grande blue cat as being a separate species or subspecies from the blue
catfish?

[RGarri7470]

>> If he were alive today, Carr

Would be scratching and clawing, trying to get out of that coffin!


Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com