One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish…

The landscape as we have known it for the Cutthroat trout in Colorado has changed forever. A new research report, published in Molecular Ecology and released Monday, has documented through DNA sequence data six divergent clades — a subspecies having a single common ancestor. These fish populations roughly correspond to the major drainage basins in Colorado.

 

Orange Fish – Rio Grande cutthroat trout – (O.c. virginalis)

Purple Fish – Greenback cutthroat trout – (O.c. stomias)

Blue Fish – Colorado cutthroat trout – (O.c. Pleuriticus)

Green Fish – Currently Un-named (formally greenback)

Yellow Fish – Yellowfin cutthroat – (O.c. macdonaldi) EXTINCT

Red Fish – Currently Un-named (San Juan River drainage) EXTINCT

 

This groundbreaking research raised more questions than it answered: 

• What do we call the Green Fish? 
• How can the Colorado Cutthroat not be from the Colorado River? 
• What do we do with all the Green Fish in Greenback waters? 
• So since the entire known population of Greenback in the world is in a four mile section of Bear Creek, how do we protect them?
• Who do I get to re-caption all my fish pictures?