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narelleart · 8 days
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Anyone here a killi person involved in killi clubs?
I need access to an article that's locked behind a membership to Killi-Data. I'm hoping to find someone that already has access so I don't have to join.
Here's the one I need:
Huber, J. H. 2019 (31 Aug.) A nomenclatural and systematic analysis of livebearing Cyprinodontiformes (Acanthopterygii: Anablepsinae, Goodeinae, Poeciliidae). Killi-Data Series 2019: 4-155.
[Link]
(All I actually need is the bit on the Poeciliidae.)
I am pretty sure it won't have any new information that I need for my science, but I need to confirm because it's listed on Catalog of Fishes as a relevant citation for taxonomy in one of my study species.
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narelleart · 11 months
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I wrote this as both a vent and an apology for my absence.
I am still recovering from this orderal, but I have a new PI who is excellent and supportive, everything I needed, and I am moving steadily forward on the path to an MS.
The more space I've had from this experience, time from the split with my original PI, the more I realize just how bad things were. He wasn't only disceiminitory, he was a toxic PI in general. He set impossible expectations and refused to give me any amount of mentorship or guidance, then it was my fault for not being able to produce the products he expected (work that requires training he knew I didn't have and refused to give me). He called me a failure and stupid because I didn't know how to be a postdoc the moment I arrived to start a PhD, coming straight from undergrad as a first-gen college student with no background in systematics.
I thought I was enduring it all okay, considering, but now that I have space I realize how much I absorbed and how much that shaped me. He destroyed my confidence, which is a major character trait of mine (approaching things I'm passionate about with an unearned level of confidence).
I was working 12 hours a day 7 days a week when not actively sick to try to teach myself how to do any of this and keep up with the mountain of work I was being buried under by him, the course demands, and my TAships. I am realizing now hoe productive I can be within reasonable working hours when I have any amount of guidance and communication, and just how much I've given up in my free time. I didn't allow my brain the space to think the types of things that lead to big long tumblr posts about fishes. I don't draw for fun, I struggle to keep up with my pets. I couldn't breathe.
I referred to myself as having been traumatized after my PI stepped down, but its worse than I realized. The entire experience of working for him had a really terrible impact on me.
Maybe now that I am recovering and not directly under his influence (I haven't 100% escaped him, unfortunately) I'll crop up here occasionally again. Hopefully with interesting posts about fishes rather than the trauma of grad school.
I haven't posted here in a long time. It's because my doctoral studies took a nose dive - my PI I was so excited about stepped down as my advisor for discriminatory reasons. (He was consistently harsh and discriminatory from winter 2021 onwards, but he was the one to decide to drop me as a student. I would have stuck it out.)
I'm mastering out here under a different advisor, and having to start a project from scratch on a short deadline to do so. When I'm done I will have to start over on a PhD elsewhere. (The PI I was working with was the only one at this institution with the expertise I came here to learn, so I will be applying to other schools to join other labs that can teach me what I was looking for.)
I talk about being sick here, but I am much sicker than I let on to people, especially the people around me in my day to day life. I have chronic pain and an episodic illness - my conditions are invisible, all anyone sees is that I'm absent a lot but seem fine, "normal" in between episodes.
It's a balancing act of trying to seem sick enough to get people to actually give me the disability accommodations I'm legally entitled to while not seeming so sick that they try to decide for me what I'm capable of and hold me back from opportunities. (The reality being that I am sicker than I ever show but just push my body to do what I want anyways - which should be up to me to decide to do.) My previous PI both decided I wasn't sick enough to accept that my sick time wasn't me blowing off work for leisure and also decided that I was too much of a liability to be allowed into the field. Worst of both sides. It lead to me scrambling to work every waking moment I wasn't actively ill, with few opportunities to rest, and my health declining from overdoing it for months straight.
He drove my mental health into the ground on top of all this, which is why I've been absent here and in other spaces some of you might see me frequent.
Being sick is enough of a hurdle on its own, but on top of that people like me have to go through long difficult processes to get diagnoses and get formal accommodations, just for people around us to still decide to be discriminitory. And in academia, there's little avenue to fight this without sinking your own career in the process.
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narelleart · 11 months
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In scientific names, if the specific epithet (the second half of the Genus + species binomial name) ends in an "i", that traditionally means the rest of the specific epithet preceeding the i is a man's name. (Women's names end in "ae". Not sure if a standard has been set for other gender identities, but this is based on masculine/feminine suffixes in latin so perhaps it could follow modern latin-derived languages' additions for neutral pronouns?)
This is something I learned and mostly adapted to, except there are a few names I learned early in my interest in fishes that are stuck in my head the way I originally misread them. I generally only realize the error when I try to say them aloud to someone who I talk science with.
(A particularly bad example:
Microsynodontis batesi
I read the epithet as "buh-tess-ee", its "Bates-eye".)
I thought I'd mostly shaken these, but just now I realized I still do one, and the whole hobby does it:
Pangio kuhli, "Kuhli loaches." It's even sometimes spelt "Coolie loach" in the hobby.
The name would actually be pronounced "Kuhl-eye".
I don't know if I could even change my pronunciation of this one at this point...
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narelleart · 1 year
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I haven't posted here in a long time. It's because my doctoral studies took a nose dive - my PI I was so excited about stepped down as my advisor for discriminatory reasons. (He was consistently harsh and discriminatory from winter 2021 onwards, but he was the one to decide to drop me as a student. I would have stuck it out.)
I'm mastering out here under a different advisor, and having to start a project from scratch on a short deadline to do so. When I'm done I will have to start over on a PhD elsewhere. (The PI I was working with was the only one at this institution with the expertise I came here to learn, so I will be applying to other schools to join other labs that can teach me what I was looking for.)
I talk about being sick here, but I am much sicker than I let on to people, especially the people around me in my day to day life. I have chronic pain and an episodic illness - my conditions are invisible, all anyone sees is that I'm absent a lot but seem fine, "normal" in between episodes.
It's a balancing act of trying to seem sick enough to get people to actually give me the disability accommodations I'm legally entitled to while not seeming so sick that they try to decide for me what I'm capable of and hold me back from opportunities. (The reality being that I am sicker than I ever show but just push my body to do what I want anyways - which should be up to me to decide to do.) My previous PI both decided I wasn't sick enough to accept that my sick time wasn't me blowing off work for leisure and also decided that I was too much of a liability to be allowed into the field. Worst of both sides. It lead to me scrambling to work every waking moment I wasn't actively ill, with few opportunities to rest, and my health declining from overdoing it for months straight.
He drove my mental health into the ground on top of all this, which is why I've been absent here and in other spaces some of you might see me frequent.
Being sick is enough of a hurdle on its own, but on top of that people like me have to go through long difficult processes to get diagnoses and get formal accommodations, just for people around us to still decide to be discriminitory. And in academia, there's little avenue to fight this without sinking your own career in the process.
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narelleart · 2 years
Video
A cool trait of this species is visible in this photo:
On the fish to the right, see how the tips of the rays on the first dorsal fin end in big knobs?
Those are egg-mimics.
Females of this species show a preference for males that have successfully spawned already and are safely guarding another female's eggs. They avoid inexperienced males that are likely to let their eggs get eaten.
So males developed these egg-mimic structures, so when they entice a female into their nest they can make it look like they've already had a successful spawn, even if they haven't, increasing the likelihood that the female will choose to stick around and mate with them.
Fantail Darters (Etheostoma flabellare) by Olaf Nelson Via Flickr: Fantail Darters (Etheostoma flabellare) from a small creek in Dubuque County, Iowa. Tributary to a tributary of the Mississippi River. Caught in a dipnet. Photographed in a photo tank in the rain. Cropped and adjusted in Photoshop (adjust contrast, etc.; color pretty much as in original shot).
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narelleart · 2 years
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@aquadraco20 replied:
"Cant you report this somewhere? Doesnt this violate the endangered species act? Or local laws regarding endangered species? Maybe the local park ranger could do something?"
Unfortunately, no, it doesn't. In the U.S., imperiled species are only protected if they are federally listed (or listed within individual states) via the Endangered Species Act (U.S. native species) or listed via CITES (international species).
For international fish imports like these, we need to look at CITES Appendices I, II, and III. Note that the different appendices afford different levels of protection. For example, we still have tank-raised Hypancistrus zebra in the trade because they are only listed in Appendix III, but there are reports that Brazil is proposing elevating it up to Appendix I.
CITES lists very few fishes. They are upping the listed sharks, at least - see most subheadings under "CLASS ELASMOBRANCHII". This does include many freshwater rays. But very few freshwater bony fishes are listed, especially when you consider how massive that group is. I see a total of 12 freshwater bony fishes. (I am including anadromous/catadromous fishes as freshwater fishes here.)
When I say that these fishes are "critically endangered", I'm referring to a status assigned to them by the IUCN Red List.
Red List assessors, species experts that are often scientists, assess species and determine their conservation status, with the intent to try to assess as many species, globally, as possible. To my knowledge, this is the only international effort even considering which species might be under threat.
This list helps inform the other conventions and regulatory bodies, but in the U.S., it holds no power on its own.
These are not the only imperiled fishes in the aquarium trade, these are just some I am very familiar with. My Pseudomystus heokhuii are also listed as Endangered (listed since I got them), but I am still seeing them crop up more and more on online stock lists.
There are a lot of hobbyists that feel that having these fishes in the trade isn't a bad thing, because they are uncommonly imported so the hobby isn't the reason they are declining. They feel that the aquarium trade is just a drop in the bucket. It's true that, for both the Parosphromenus spp. and my Pseudomystus heokhuii, the real threat is habitat destruction for anthropogenic land use.
But I still don't like to see specimens going to brick and mortar stores where the customers who buy them won't know what they're getting and won't try to spawn them. Unfortunately, there's not really anything that can be done about it without federal regulation, which is unlikely to happen.
I visited a nearby city and stopped in a fish store that had four "species" of Parosphromenus (one undescribed, under a trade name).
I couldn't just leave, so I took home the pair they had of the species highest on the ranking list I'd made previously which also happened to be a critically endangered species. (Parosphromenus gunawani, if they were identified correctly. I'll sort it out when I get a chance to get a better look at them.)
I wish I could have taken the others too - some species had larger groups, and I would have bought every individual they had of any species I bought. But I wasn't prepared for that, I'm limited on tank space in my current living situation and only had one cycled filter ready.
All Parosphromenus are imperiled, they are endemic to niche specialized habitats that are under anthropogenic threat. They have no business in the aquarium trade, and certainly not in brick and mortar shops like this. Another customer was trying to get them to sell him moderately sized catfishes for his one gallon "tank". Anyone could walk in and buy these, with no intention of spawning them, no idea what they are.
I mentioned to the shop owner that they were imperiled and he clearly had no qualms about that, but was more so bothered that I brought it up.
The other Parosphromenus they had were:
P. nagyi
P. ornaticauda
P. sp. "Sentang"
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narelleart · 2 years
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I visited a nearby city and stopped in a fish store that had four "species" of Parosphromenus (one undescribed, under a trade name).
I couldn't just leave, so I took home the pair they had of the species highest on the ranking list I'd made previously which also happened to be a critically endangered species. (Parosphromenus gunawani, if they were identified correctly. I'll sort it out when I get a chance to get a better look at them.)
I wish I could have taken the others too - some species had larger groups, and I would have bought every individual they had of any species I bought. But I wasn't prepared for that, I'm limited on tank space in my current living situation and only had one cycled filter ready.
All Parosphromenus are imperiled, they are endemic to niche specialized habitats that are under anthropogenic threat. They have no business in the aquarium trade, and certainly not in brick and mortar shops like this. Another customer was trying to get them to sell him moderately sized catfishes for his one gallon "tank". Anyone could walk in and buy these, with no intention of spawning them, no idea what they are.
I mentioned to the shop owner that they were imperiled and he clearly had no qualms about that, but was more so bothered that I brought it up.
The other Parosphromenus they had were:
P. nagyi
P. ornaticauda
P. sp. "Sentang"
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narelleart · 2 years
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The older I've gotten, the sicker I've gotten, and the more I've had to work to advocate for myself because of the limitations of my illness. I've had to come to terms with recognizing my illness as the disability that it is. It's permeated all aspects of my life.
When did "sick" become a part of my identity?
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narelleart · 2 years
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I am once again catching myself getting sentimental about species descriptions… The sheer care and dedication of looking at a tiny little animal long and hard enough to observe every hair, every color facet, every ridge and bump on its body. The act of putting these miniscule details into obscure Latin words, like incantations for others to imagine and compare. The naming of a species - hello, little creature, we see you. You are special to us, here is what we will call you, we even printed a brand new label.
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narelleart · 2 years
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Another dumb epiphany today:
I really love loaches but have never kept any in aquaria because I love catfishes more and don't want to crowd the substrate area/have the catfishes constantly pestered by rowdy, nosy loaches. I will certainly get some when I have a fish room and don't have to be as precious with my tank space, but for now the catfishes are the priority.
But! No one says I can't study both! Nothing is keeping me from researching any Otophysan with barbels. 👀 (I like Siluriformes and Cypriniformes, the Otophysans with barbels, and they're related enough that this isn't a terrible jump to make.)
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narelleart · 2 years
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Not what I am supposed to be doing today, but I am pouring though literature on my dissertation topic and it feels like an absolute breath of fresh air. After a terrible semester putting everything I cared about (research) on the back burner, finally taking a moment to dig into the topic I'm most interested in and fine tuning what I want out of it, finding the areas I need to look into more, is just....a relief? It's like I've been holding my breath this whole time without noticing.
That feels like a good sign too. Technically this is work on my broader to-do list, but this is enjoyable and relaxing. And makes me excited to get started on the real dissertation research!
(I really want to open up some fishes to better understand the anatomical descriptions I'm reading that delinate my group from the rest...I'll have to ask Dr. Coolguy if that's something I could do when he is next available to talk.)
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narelleart · 2 years
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I've realized how much the specific program I'm in has held me back. It's expectations don't align with the interests of me or my advisor. But he needed me to apply through this one because they have funding.
I had two publications in the works that I could have been done with by now, but my program operates as if all students are ecologists, and can't do research our first year because there hasn't been time for a field season yet, so they overload our schedules to get the coursework out of the way. So those publications are still being drug out, about a year after starting them.
They also assume that we should all be on grants or fellowships (I'm not) which alleviates some of the time commitments put on us, because those students TA less or not at all.
To compound all this, I am disabled and held back by my health. So I try to juggle all this overload and still squeeze in my priorities, but my health fails me and research is where things have to fall short. Which is frustrating for me, when the research is what I'm here for and all I actually care about, and puts me at odds with my advisor, who has high expectations for his students. But his expectations are what I want to be doing - it wouldn't be an issue if I wasn't disabled and/or wasn't having to juggle program expectations that are at odds with my kind of science.
Its all very frustrating and all just ends up falling on me, being my problem. I feel stuck floating in the middle. I've got a meeting with the program coordinator coming up though and might complain then - they can't keep doing this to future students. I can't be the last one who isn't an ecologist and runs into these issues (ecology is only half of the program title, but the ecologists far outnumber the evolutionary biologists).
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narelleart · 2 years
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I've still been thinking of this. Just not sure how I want to go about it.
A visuals-heavy post on tumblr? A video (tiktok or youtube) so I can not only illustrate the things I'm talking about, but also show how the structures function using specimens from the teaching collection here? 🤔
Do I link it to my tumblr, which might have more limited potential for views, or choose another platform where more people might see it? (If I make this thing, I'd like lots of artists to see it.)
If I do a video with the teaching collection, I'd be inclined to do this on a separate site where I can have it linked to my professional identity, so I can talk about who I am and what the collections are. (Probably also need approval if it gets to that point.) I wouldn't want that connected to my tumblr so my radical fish husbandry opinions I've been sharing here for years, not always tactfully, aren't easy for professional contacts to find.
I want to put together a guide to drawing fishes that is geared specifically at artists. I see a lot of common mistakes in gorgeous art pieces that are just because the artist doesn't know fish anatomy well enough to catch them. And that's understandable! But I both have an in depth understanding of fish anatomy and am an artist myself, so I could absolutely make a useful reference. 🤔
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narelleart · 2 years
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For the mayfly nymph:
Fisheries people who ID aquatic macroinvertebrates for their job typically don't ID mayfly larvae down to species, they are tough to tell apart. I attended a workshop with a dude who works with macros that said they would have to send their samples in to an expert if they wanted to get that specific, and they collect way too many to do that. At least in fisheries contexts, knowing to genus level from a larva is considered impressive. From my understanding, just IDing to the family level is more typical.
In my undergraduate research, I IDed PA native macroinvertebrate remains from fish stomach contents. But my fish were catfish, so the bugs were typically pretty smashed up. I had to ID by head capsules, not whole bugs, which is hard to see in this picture. From what I know, I would guess Siphlonuridae or Baetidae for this one. But I am no expert.
Peckarsky et al.'s book, "Freshwater Macroinvertebrates of Northeastern North America" was recommended to me and was what I used for my IDs. It was a good book.
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@frigidsteels submitted: first four pics are some friends I found around my house (Pike county, PA)! I believe that the first guy in my hands is a mayfly nymph? We found him in the creek. Plus some other cool guys in the dirt, and a cellar spider that had children in my shower. Bonus domesticated spiders for you, too; Chili after a fresh molt, and Peanut showing how big he’s gotten!
I’d love if you could help me ID the first nymph and the lads in the dirt.
Yes, the first fellow is a mayfly nymph, but I’d personally have no chance of IDing species from a nymph. The long dirt pals are flat-backed millipedes and the isopod looks like a common shiny woodlouse. Please tell the cellar spider mother and her babies that I love them and they’re perfect. And actually tell the same thing to your tarantulas, they’re lovely! :)
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narelleart · 2 years
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Note to self:
Start finding and making a list of women in ichthyology.
All the big names that come to mind off hand are men.
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narelleart · 2 years
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I keep half typing up these posts about my episodic illness, but then they get too long when I still have so much to say so I give up.
It's been...perhaps a bigger problem than ever before, in my whole life, during this semester. I've been having a really hard time.
I should probably look into better resources to advocate for myself.
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narelleart · 2 years
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I want to put together a guide to drawing fishes that is geared specifically at artists. I see a lot of common mistakes in gorgeous art pieces that are just because the artist doesn't know fish anatomy well enough to catch them. And that's understandable! But I both have an in depth understanding of fish anatomy and am an artist myself, so I could absolutely make a useful reference. 🤔
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