Dabbling in the Ozarks

May 24, 2016
The next morning Ken and I explored some more spots in southern Missouri.  Ken was keen on checking off all the species in the Lepomis genus and that he did! A tiny trickle of a stream produced a new species of darter. Brook darterP5214002 Nearby frogwater produced a new species of sunfish. Redspotted sunfish??????????????????????????????? As well as some other remarkably coloured specimens. Dollar sunfish??????????????????????????????? Green sunfish??????????????????????????????? I caught this topminnow that I had thought was a blackstripe, but finding out later that there are mostly blackspotted in this area I can't call it either way. ??????????????????????????????? However, I did manage a new species of topminnow at another spot. Starhead topminnow??????????????????????????????? As well as yet another new darter.  I can't believe how many different species of darters there are... Slough darter??????????????????????????????? That evening we had some time to check out one of Ben's spots near our campsite.  I was pretty out of it at this point in the trip.  At one point Ken quoted me as proclaiming "Woah it's Africa..." P5214020 Regardless, we got to the spot. P5214035 We ended up with an absolute mess of stonerollers, a fish that we've failed to find back home time after time! Central stonerollerP5214089 ??????????????????????????????? No shortage of sculpins either. Knobfin sculpinP5214023 Bleeding shiner??????????????????????????????? Ozark minnowP5214098 Rainbow darter??????????????????????????????? Returning to our campsite after dark, we were in amazement at the sheer number of deer!  Almost everywhere we looked, deer, deer and more deer. P5214176

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