More Types of Fish Call Alabama Home than Any Other State; New Book Details Each Freshwater Species
by Chris Bryant
It’s no wonder you can hear so many good fish tales in Alabama when you consider how many different types of fish tails can be found in the state’s waters.
A pair of former University of Alabama colleagues recently added to the state’s abundant list as they have documented 18 new species of fish among the 300-plus profiled in their recently published “Fishes of Alabama.”
Dr. Herbert Boschung, professor emeritus of biological sciences at UA, and Dr. Richard Mayden, former UA professor of biological sciences and current chairman of the department of biology at Saint Louis University, teamed with widely recognized fish artist Joseph Tomelleri in producing the book.
Published by Smithsonian Books, with a foreword by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and UA alumnus E.O. Wilson, “Fishes of Alabama” details, in reader friendly format with stunning illustrations, each of the state’s known freshwater fish species. The 960-page book documents the diets, growth rates, reproduction, sizes, distribution and status of Alabama’s fishes.
The idea for the book originated with Boschung, who has spent more than 50 years studying fishes and who taught in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences from 1950 until his retirement in 1987.
“You work all your life at something, and you want to leave a little bit of something here,” said Boschung of the book.
Boschung said he remains fascinated by fish, their life history, their biology, their courtship process, the tenacity to which they cling to life, and their diversity.
“If you take the most primitive fish to the most advanced, some of them are probably genetically more removed from one another than the more recent ones are from mammals. Fishes cover a humongous range,” Boschung said.
And in that humongous range, no geographical area has as high a degree of fish diversity as does Alabama, Mayden said.
“The state of Alabama is, by far, without any doubt, the most species rich state in the United States when it comes to fishes,” Mayden said. Combining the state’s freshwater and marine species gives the state nearly 1,000 fish species, he said.
The book focuses on the state’s 341 freshwater species and, during the course of producing the book, the researchers located every one of those species, except two that are documented as extinct.
Mayden said he hopes Alabamians and others enjoy the book, but he hopes the state’s residents enjoy more what’s all around them.
“Alabama is blessed,” Mayden said. “That state is blessed with the beauty of the natural world in many ways. Our younger generation and older generations need to go out and experience it and enjoy it. They need to snorkel; they need to enjoy the flowing waters of Alabama more.”
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