Flannelmouth Sucker: The Ironhorse of the Colorado River Basin

When I began graduate school in 2012 at Kansas State University, I was excited to work with the highly endemic fishes of the Colorado River basin, particularly federally endangered Colorado Pikeminnow Ptychocheilus lucius. However, low catch rates combined with limited historical catch data for Colorado Pikeminnow shifted my research focus toward community‐wide investigations of native and nonnative fishes in the tributaries of the San Juan River, located within the upper Colorado River basin. The occurrence of endangered fish species in some of the smaller tributaries of the upper Colorado River basin had been documented; however, the role of tributaries in the persistence of native fishes in the San Juan River basin was relatively unknown. Upon this shift of perspective, another endemic fish captured my attention, stealing the spotlight from the big river minnow.

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