Fish of the week, the Tonguetied Minnow, captured Oil Creek at Drake’s Well, Saturday September 14.
The Tonguetied Minnow is found in the runs and flowing pools of larger streams. It is intolerant of turbidity or siltation, and thus a good water quality indicator. The Tonguetied Minnow has several quirks that make it a very unusual fish. One is its limited distribution: The worldwide range of the Tonguetied Minnow consists of three geographically restricted populations. One is in the Miami River of western Ohio, one in the headwaters of the New River in West Virginia and Virginia, and one in the upper Allegheny and Genessee drainages of Pennsylvania and New York. Within these areas, the fish is locally abundant, but has declined across its range in recent years. The Oil Creek fish are at the southern edge of the Allegheny population. We have also encountered the tonguetieds in the Brokenstraw and Kinzua drainages.
The Tonguetied Minnow is named for its unusal lower lip – it is a protruding bony plate that nestles inside the thick upper lips – so you can say it keeps a stiff lower lip. And finally, like many other minnows, it has interesting reproductive habits. In spring, males construct nests for spawning that consist of a mound of pea-gravel, about a foot wide and several feet long, oriented perpendicular to the current. Males gather the small stones, about a centimeter long, from as far as 10 meters from the nest, and carry the stones in their mouths to the nest site. Females are enticed to lay eggs onto the gravel bar, and males then cover the eggs with yet more gravel. The ecology and life-history of this species is not well known, providing yet one more example of a fish mystery waiting to be solved.
Fishes of the Allegheny 