Additions to the Known Kansas Fish Fauna

Abstract

During the last two years the author has been directing a biological survey of the Spring River System in Missouri and Kansas. One of the largest tributaries of this system is Shoal Creek, heading near Exeter, Missouri, and flowing nearly 90 miles to its confluence with Spring River at Lowell, Cherokee County, Kansas. The influence of this, the only Ozarkian system in the state, on the Kansas fish fauna is great. Approximately 62 per cent of the fish species known from the entire state of Kansas also occur in Shoal Creek and 14 species, or 11 per cent, are known only from that stream. The three species herein reported bring the total number of fish species known from Kansas to 130. On 25 May 1963 some clear, backwater pools were sampled. These were about six to eight inches in depth, heavily overgrown by watercress, nearly filled with decaying leaves and located approximately two and onehalf miles southeast of Lowell, section 21, T34S, R25E, Cherokee County, Kansas. Adjacent to these pools were several swift riffles. A total of 17 species were obtained, two of which were previously unknown from Kansas. Thirty-four Fundulus sciadicus Cope (KSC-217), 14 females, 30.054.6 mm in standard length, and 20 males, 33.0-51.0 mm, were secured. Four females and five males were deposited at the University of Kansas Museum of Zoology (KU-7444). Both sexes have 14 anal rays, that of the female being convexly rounded and having its anterior rays strongly clasped by the genital sheath; the remaining rays are directed at about a 900 angle from the body. In the male this fin is nearly straight-edged because of the longer rays, also 14 in number, which are directed slightly caudad. In both sexes, the body is olivaceously colored. All of the fins are dusky-white in the female; only the pectorals are thus colored in the male. The remaining fins of the male are colored as follows: pelvics rather uniformly deep orange; outer one-fourth of the anal orange, basally dusky-white; outer edge of dorsal orange, otherwise as in female; caudal dusky with a caudally-convex orange bar, the lower edges of which are directed anteriad. The colors of this species have never been carefully described. Breeding was in progress, as young fish were observed escaping from eggs. Reproduction continues until at least as late as the end of June. We have collected F. sciadicus from several Missouri localities in Shoal Creek, most abundantly in headwater situations, and in north-