‘The fish that wears a feather’: Sicklefin Redhorse fish given scientific name
The Sicklefin Redhorse is now officially a new species. Donated photo
The Sicklefin Redhorse has a long history in the waters of southern Appalachia. But the fish wasn’t rediscovered and recognized as a distinct species until 1992. Now, the fish has been scientifically described and as of February, has an official scientific name — Moxostoma ugidatli.
According to a new paper in the journal Ichthyology & Herpetology, the Sicklefin Redhorse is perhaps the largest truly new North American species discovered in the last century. The fish is a medium-sized sucker with a curved dorsal fin, bright red tail and an olive-colored body with a coppery sheen. It can grow up to 26 inches in length and live for 20 years.
Today’s populations are confined by the presence of dams and impoundments, abundant in the rivers of Western North Carolina, and the Sicklefin Redhorse have only been found in the Hiwassee and Little Tennessee River watersheds in Cherokee, Clay, Swain, Macon and Jackson counties. But historically, scientists believe their range may have been far larger.
“Where they’re at, they’re restricted to a handful of places, but they would have been all over these watersheds, at least seasonally,” said Luke Etchison, Western Region Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Coordinator for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
‘I got a name’
The new scientific name for the Sicklefin Redhorse is Moxostoma Ugidatli.
Moxostoma is a genus of North American ray-finned fish in the family Catostomidai. It consists of 42 nominal species with 23 considered valid.
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Ugidatli (pronounced ooh-gee-dacht’lee) is the Cherokee word for the species and means “it wears a feather” in reference to the fish being the only species in the region with a dorsal fin exposed above the water when spawning. The dorsal fin also resembles the shape of a feather.
“This great, long falcate dorsal fin kind of sets it apart from all other redhorse in the world,” Mike LaVoie, natural resource manager for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, told researchers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Recognizing the species’ significance to the Cherokee people played a central role in choosing its scientific name.
“We felt it important to honor the Cherokee name as it occurs on the unceded territory of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and it is right and proper to refer to the species using the name spoken by its true discoverers,” authors of the paper naming the fish wrote.
Before the fish was recognized by the scientific community beginning in the 1990s, it had been important to the Cherokee people for centuries.
“Cherokee folks, along with other southeastern tribes were often considered river tribes,” Caleb Hickman, supervisory biologist with the EBCI, told researchers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “I still talk to people that can tell you stories about different ways of preparing redhorse … They were a predominant food source.”
The Sicklefin Redhorse was given its common name by Bob Jenkins in the 1990s, who discovered, or rediscovered, several species of redhorse over the last few decades.
“Bob Jenkins is like the father of the suckers. He’s worked on suckers his entire life and he’s described a lot of species,” said Etchison. “He put a lot of effort into Sicklefin, I think he viewed it as one of his last hoorahs. He collected all this really valuable information about the species.”
Jenkins passed away in July 2023, but the authors of the paper that presents the scientific name of the Sicklefin Redhorse recognize his invaluable work on the subject.
“As we finished up this work, we were reminded of the classic Jim Croce song ‘I Got a Name,’ as the Sicklefin Redhorse will finally have a name after it had been hidden for so long,” the paper reads. “Jim Croce died the day before the song was released, and he never got to see his own legacy. The same is true of Bob. Bob left us a great wealth of information as his legacy, and it is up to those interested in redhorse to see that his legacy is fulfilled.”
Ecological import
Sucker fish in general have been fighting a negative stereotype for a while now, that Etchison said stems from incorrect information.
“Folks used to think that they competed with sport fish — game fish species,” said Etchison. “When you’re in a small trout stream and then you see 1,000 two-foot-long suckers swim by you, in those days where they didn’t know that much, it makes sense that one might think there’s not enough room for all of these things in there.”
In reality, these types of fish are of vital importance to the local ecosystem.
The Sicklefin Redhorse have a spawning run that is similar to that of salmon. They navigate upstream to the same smaller headwaters each year to lay eggs during the late winter and early spring when water temperatures are between 50 and 54 degrees.
“They have this role of basically bringing energy from lower in the system,” said Etchison. “The headwaters of a river have really low nutrients, and because of that, have low productivity.”
There are only a few ways to get productivity in a river. Among them are connections with flood plains and leaf litter entering a stream and getting broken down by insects.
“Another good source is bringing it from the lower, bigger parts of the river,” said Etchison. “Sicklefins are one of the many sucker species that do that.”
Redhorse are their own subset within sicklefins, and this is one of their more important roles in the local ecosystem.
“They bring nitrogen up from lower in the system, they release that nitrogen and it’s basically like a fertilizer,” said Hutchinson. “So that spawning run serves as a fertilizer, and it really boosts what the river is capable of.”
While it’s clear that dams and impoundments are an impediment to the free range of fish that move up and down waterways throughout their life, the Sicklefin Redhorse is still being studied to understand its movement and habitat use.
In February, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources at Western Carolina University Keith Gibbs and his team were awarded a $40,000 grant from the Sicklefin Redhorse Conservation Working Group in order to study the species’ movement using radio telemetry.
In the research, Gibbs’ team will implant radio transmitters into hatchery-raised fish at the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery in Georgia. After giving the fish a few days to acclimate and recover in the hatchery, the team will release the fish into the Little Tennessee river and go out weekly to track their movements.
In addition to its job fertilizing smaller streams, the Sicklefin Redhorse plays a direct role in the lifecycle of an endangered species unique to Appalachia.
The Appalachian Elktoe Mussel was listed as endangered in 1994 when only two populations were known to exist in the world — one in North Carolina’s Little Tennessee River and the other in the Toe/Nolichucky rivers, straddling the North Carolina-Tennessee state line. Since then, additional populations have been discovered in Western North Carolina and conservation efforts have helped struggling populations that were threatened by habitat degradation from impoundments, stream channelization projects and pollutants.
During the reproduction cycle of the Appalachian Elktoe, females retain fertilized eggs in their gills until the larvae fully develop, at which point they are released into the water and must attach to the gills or fins of an appropriate fish species.
The baby mussels stay on board the host fish for several weeks, drawing nourishment from the fish as they develop into juvenile mussels. While this process doesn’t harm the fish, it allows the mussels to develop to reproductive age. But their dependence on certain fish species also increases their vulnerability to habitat disruptions.
“The Appalachian Elktoe, luckily — it’s probably the reason it’s still around — is a generalist,” said Etchison, meaning the mussel can attach to different types of fish.
But recent research by Rebecca Ewing at Appalachian State University into Appalachian Elktoe and its host fish showed that the Sicklefin Redhorse was one of the best species of host fish for the young mussels.
“So basically, the survival of our endemic, federally endangered Appalachian Elktoe is riding on the gills of Redhorse and other sucker species,” said Etchison.
Conservation
While the Sicklefin Redhorse is not federally protected, it is considered threatened in North Carolina and endangered in Georgia.
“In Georgia, they’re in danger compared to North Carolina because they’re basically only in one stream,” said Etchison. “They’re only in Brasstown, this really small stream, and a lot of it’s just coming in there to spawn.”
In North Carolina, the fish are not quite as at risk as they are in Georgia.
While the species was petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act in 2005, it was kept off the list in part because of cooperation between ECBI, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies in North Carolina and Georgia and other partners, both public and private.
In 2015, this cooperation between partners was formalized to create the Sicklefin Redhorse Conservation Committee. In 2016 the species was removed from the candidate list for endangered species thanks to the existence of stable breeding populations and protection of over 40% of the species’ range on state and federal conservation lands.
Today, the population in the Little Tennessee River is considered stable with annual population estimates exceeding 1,000 individuals in both the Little Tennessee and the Tuckasegee.
“These candidate conservation agreements are a way to basically prevent something from being federally listed, so it doesn’t become a regulatory burden to certain partners like energy groups and things like that in an area,” said Etchison. “The great thing for these species is these candidate conservation agreements get a bunch of partners to sign on to say they will work to conserve the species.”
The conservation agreement for the Sicklefin Redhorse currently involves the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Tennessee Valley Authority, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
The conservation agreement helps to obtain money for research and conservation efforts at a more accelerated rate than might be possible if the species were federally listed.
“A lot of folks think that if something is federally listed, it’s great, but it actually can make it more difficult for us to expand their range and work together,” said Etchison. “It’s just harder to put things places if they’re going to potentially add regulatory burden.”
Researchers familiar with the Sicklefin Redhorse believe that dam removal could prove to be a turning point for the species’ proliferation.
“I think that the best thing that’s happened to the species is probably going to be when they remove Ela Dam,” said Etchison.
According to Etchison, after the Dillsboro Dam was removed in 2010, the Sicklefin Redhorse immediately began to move upstream.
Ela Dam is a 100-year-old structure that sits on the Oconaluftee River, about half a mile above its confluence with the Tuckaseegee. Now, it’s slated for removal.
“It’s been a dam that just cut off the Cherokee from the rest of the watershed,” said Hutchinson. “It’s really cool because it’s going to reconnect the flow from the Cherokee people to the rest of the watershed. And also, the species that we have downstream that are not upstream, they’ll finally be able to move up and thrive on their ancestral waters.”
Ultimately, Etchison says, liked the Elktoe and the Redhorse, it’s important to understand how so many aspects of the local ecosystem are interconnected and interdependent.
“It’s good for folks to know, if you’re into the conservation of our rivers, whether it’s because you fish, or because you paddle or because you snorkel or whatever, it’s good for folks to understand all these things that are here and used to be here, are native here,” Hutchinson said. “Whether you realize it or not, they’re all connected. If they thrive, we thrive.”
