Fish humps in two Colorado River fishes: a morphological response to cyprinid predation?

Abstract

Extant fishes endemic to the upper Colorado River of the American southwest include only cyprinids and catostomids. A curious attribute in species of both groups is the presence of a large nuchal hump. Largest cyprinid humps occur in humpback chub, Gila cypha, and largest catostomid humps occur in razorback sucker, Xyrauchen texanus. Several authors have suggested the humps confer a hydrodynamic advantage to life in fast flow, but this premise has not been confirmed with experimental work. To test the role of humps in Colorado River fishes, we subjected whole-body casts of preserved specimens with humps and with humps removed to controlled flows in an experimental tank. These tests confirmed that humps increased drag coefficients for X. texanus and G. cypha with no additional lift component. High energetic costs of locomotion and position-holding with a large hump, and the additional metabolic expense of forming large humps, suggest that the humps are not relict structures. Instead, we argue that these large humps represent convergent evolution prompted by predation from a cyprinid piscivore. Colorado pikeminnow, Ptychocheilus lucius, top piscivore in the Colorado River system, is the only native fish capable of consuming large X. texanus and G. cypha, and it also is sympatric with them. However, lack of jaw teeth and a relatively small jaw gape limit the maximum prey size that P. lucius can consume. Based on gape size, about 55% of X. texanus and 71% of G. cypha could be consumed by even the largest P. lucius. However, vulnerability would increase to 73 and 83% respectively if these species did not have humps. Coevolution tends to favor predator defense mechanisms in prey most vulnerable to such a voracious predator. Development of a large nuchal hump provides a deep body that is difficult or impossible for P. lucius to ingest.