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10 <br />to come only from deeper, off shore habitat toward the middle of the <br />backwater. These observations were consistently repeated, and are <br />evidence that razorback larvae assume a benthic habit in deeper water as <br />they increase in size beyond ca 12 mm. Five larvae, all >15 mm TL, were <br />taken by larval trawl from the deepest portion of the backwater on 18 <br />April. <br />We further attempted to rear suckers in small enclosures to examine <br />larval growth. Cages of wooden frames (15x15x30 cm) covered with 0.25 <br />mm-mesh mosquito netting were suspended at a given depth or anchored to <br />shoreline vegetation. In early March 1985, larvae were collected from <br />Hammerhead Cove and the Arizona Bay Backwater and placed in cages at the <br />former (N = 3 replicates) and latter (N = 2) sites. Initial mean larval <br />TL was 10.4 to 10.6 mm (N = 25 to 50 per replicate). Eighty percent of <br />larvae survived the first 2-3 weeks of restraint and showed modest <br />growth to 11.5 mm. While only a few larvae survived as long as a month, <br />they showed mean increase in length as great as 3.1 mm, nearly 30% of <br />initial sizes. We attribute most mortality in cages to poor experi- <br />mental control: repeated acts of vandalism and/or tampering, escape of <br />agile larvae through small tears or loose areas of the mesh covering, <br />and wave action washing cages onto shore. Despite these problems, it is <br />clear that larvae reared in cages survived long enough to attain total <br />lengths significantly greater than any collected from the lake. <br />On 10 April, 10 relatively large (18 mm TL) sucker larvae were <br />collected in the Arizona Bay backwater and placed in a cage in Hammer- <br />head Cove. Three larvae died within 24 hours, but remaining fish <br />survived more than 3 weeks and attained lengths of up to 34 mm TL, the <br />largest we have seen outside of hatchery situations. <br />