Three Newly Described Fish Species Added to Bell Collections

It’s a good thing that the wet collections at the Bell Museum are stored in the basement. They are so large, and so heavy, that Collections Assistant Faith Kelly asserts that all 40,000 glass jars  — and a couple of ethanol-filled boxes of sturgeon  — would fall through the ceiling if they were stored upstairs. So the collections are kept underground in windowless rooms, where row upon row of glass jars are filled to the brim with glassy-eyed fish whose scales have turned yellow from the ethanol that preserves them. The fish in each jar are carefully labeled, and they serve as a library of sorts that fish scientists, known as ichthyologists (say that five times fast) use to answer research questions, or examine new species.

Peter Hundt (foreground) and Faith Kelly researching Fundulus holotypes in the Bell’s fish lab.

So while the collection resembles the lair of an ambitious potion brewer, its contribution to science is invaluable. A dozen or so jars crowded with palm-sized fish represent three new species on the record, perpetually preserved for any researchers who need to make a fish ID, run genetic analyses, or study the natural history of these newly-known fish.

Dr. Peter Hundt, co-author on a forthcoming paper describing the new species, invited me to take a look at the voucher specimens as he examined them alongside Bell Fish Curator, Dr. Kassie Ford.

Hundt and Ford were choosing what’s called a holotype — a single specimen that will live in the collections in perpetuity as the representative for each species. Every species described by science has a holotype, and with lots of variation within most species, a holotype helps scientists stay consistent as they make comparisons between species. 

Kassandra Ford helped Hundt pick out a holotype from the specimens he collected

In the case of the new species described by Hundt, that’s especially important, because they all look pretty similar. Belonging to the genus Fundulus, and found in small, clear streams across the Central Highlands of the South-Central US, the Fundulus species (commonly called studfish) were separated based on an analysis of their genetic code. 

Hundt is one of many Bell affiliates, who are researchers who work for other institutions, but can access and contribute to the Bell collections. For Hundt, the cabinets of jars in the basement were a final stop on a far-ranging journey of fish discovery. Hundt and a team of fish researchers waded up and down creeks, kicking their feet to spook fish into the range of an electric fish-shocking device. Once stunned, the fish were scooped up in a net to be added to Bell collections.

Hundt holds a studfish collected in the field

I asked Hundt about the challenges of field work. 

“Sometimes, you’re kicking as hard as you can, and all of a sudden it’s a washing machine,” Hundt recalled. “Or I’d drive eight hours to a river and it would be flooded and too dangerous to sample…plus a lot of these [sampling sites] are just full of snakes…I just assumed everything was a water moccasin.”

When he wasn’t dodging venomous snakes, Hundt was finding colorful Fundulus fish, also known by their common name, studfish. The fish don’t get larger than seven inches, so finding them isn’t always easy.

“There’s these historic [sampling] spots people knew existed, because of museum collections,” Hundt said. 

Now, the fish that Hundt collected will be a part of that collections database, so the next generation of ichthyologists knows where to look. From a couple of the fish, slivers of tissue were removed for genetic analysis, and stored in freezers under the watchful eye of the Bell’s Dr. Keith Barker, curator of genetic resources.

The genetic differences between studfish that look superficially similar, but are found in separate regions, were obvious enough to divide a previously described species, the northern studfish, into three. The data suggests that the fish aren’t hybridizing with each other, and they will, in theory, continue to evolve separately as time goes on. Another way to determine differences between species is to run them through a CT scan to get an image of the bones in their skulls. Subtle differences in bone shape and structure can spell a difference between two species.

The complexity of a studfish skull, shown in a CT scan (Photo credit: Dr. Kory Evans, Rice University)

Hundt’s paper describing the new species is still under peer review, so he hasn’t yet finalized new names for the little fish. He’s leaning toward names that reflect the unique geographic ranges of each species and highlight Indigenous history in the South Central highlands. 

While he waits for feedback from other scientists, Hundt is already scheming about future ways to use the immense weight (both physical and academic) of the Bell fish collections. For example, there are combtooth blennies, a colorful, frog-faced saltwater fish, that need CT scans so researchers can observe differences in their bone structure. Whatever the next project may be, Hundt knows how important the collections are for science:

“It’s the critical link that’s required to show your work,” Hundt said. “In the future, if anybody wants to come look at the individual tagged fish that I have taken tissues from, they can.”