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Emporia St. Professor Discovers
New Catfish
-The Emporia Gazette
EMPORIA, Kan. - An Emporia State University professor has discovered a new
species of catfish - a find made official when it was published in the
December issue of a scientific journal.
Professor David Edds found the catfish, called batasio macronotus, in
Nepal after collecting specimens in 1984 and 1996, but those had to be
compared with known species, a labor-intensive job.
His discovery was published in the Ichthyological Exploration of
Freshwaters. The 4- to 5-inch batasio macronotus (macro means long and
otus means back) has an unusually long adipose fin, a short dorsal spin
and thick tail region.
Edds' fish collections number in the thousands. According to Emporia
State's Web site, the fish are kept at the Fisheries Development Division
in Kathmandu, Nepal, at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, and at Oklahoma
State University and the University of Kansas.
Heok Hee Ng, a University of Michigan researcher and expert on Asian
fishes, helped with the discovery of
batasio macronotus and co-wrote the
article about the previously unidentified catfish.
"He recognized that this is something different," Edds said of the
University of Michigan researcher. "He was generous enough to include me
as a co-author."
The pair also has submitted an article for review describing two other new
species of fish and is working on another manuscript about two more
discoveries.
Edds became interested in fish as an undergraduate at the University of
Kansas, then joined the Peace Corps, which sent him to Nepal, where a
thorough survey of fish had never been done.
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