Absentees of the Rappahannock and York River Coastal Plain Fish Fauna.
         The York and Rappahannock river drainage basins are very similar in their fish fauna.   They both drain moderately large coastal plain areas.  Based on historical records both drainages lack three common coastal  plain fishes: Enneacanthus chaetodon, Etheostoma fusiforme, and Notropis chalybaeus.  In addition, Enneacanthus obesus populations are very localized in the York and completely absent in the Rappahannock.  These peculiarities may be the result of ancient drainage conditions or from the difficulty in collecting in the debris filled backwaters of the coastal plain.  Recently two of these species were discovered in a collection from a tributary of the York River.  This collection was made by a MWC biology class as part of an unrelated project.  Thus the historical records are not completely accurate with respect to the distribution of these species.  I propose to sample the tributaries of the York and Rappahannock rivers in search of additional populations of these four fish.  The primary objective of this project is to supplement and clarify what is know of the zoogeography of these species.

Undergraduate students involved with this project: