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Changing Fish Fauna of the Southwest 375 <br /> <br /> <br />Between 1890 and 1895 the woundfin, Plagopterus argentissimus <br />Cope (Miller and Hubbs, 1960), was present in the Gila River at its <br />mouth (Gilbert and Scofield, 1898, p. 496). Other species listed in <br />Table I that were taken only in the lower Gila include the desert pup- <br />fish, Cyprinodon macularius Baird and Girard, and the Gila top- <br />minnow, Poeciliopsis occidentalis (Baird and Girard). That the habi- <br />tat in the lower Gila River was very favorable for these quiet-water <br />species is indicated in the report by Antisell (1857, p. 133), which <br />describes how the river spread broadly and was in places swampy <br />and overgrown with willows. The appearance of the euryhaline <br />striped mullet, Mugil cephalus Linnaeus, around 1934-35, and of the <br />machete or ten-pounder, Elops affinis Regan, in 1941 (Glidden, 1941), <br />is plausibly attributed to the disappearance of the predatory Colorado <br />squawfish and likely also to other ecological changes, such as the ad- <br />vent of clear water and a relatively stable flow. A number of the <br />exotic species represent intentional introductions or bait releases <br />(Miller, 1952,• Hubbs, 1954; Kimsey, Hagy, and McCammon, 1957; <br />Shapovalov, Dill, and Cordone, 1959, p. 166), and still other intro- <br />duced forms may now occur in the Colorado around Yuma (Beland, <br />1953b; St. Amant,1959). The recent record (Hubbs,1953) of Eleotris <br />picta Kner and Steindachner from a canal spillway north of Yuma <br />is not included in the tabulation since this specimen obviously repre- <br />sents a rare straggler; the species has not been taken from the Colo- <br />rado River, and there have been no subsequent records from the lower <br />Colorado River basin. <br />BAN PEDBO RIVER (TABLE II) <br />In 1846 the Colorado squawfish was reported to have run up the <br />San Pedro River to about Fairbank (Fig. 1), and remains of this <br />species have been recovered from an archaeological site along this <br />river at nearby Quiburi (Miller, 1955, pp. 133-134) ; the trash heap <br />containing the fishbones was dated as A.D. 1704-63. Humpback suck- <br />ers also once inhabited the San Pedro for they were reported by <br />Chamberlain to have been marketed at Tombstone as "buffalo," <br />probably prior to the 1880's (Miller, 1955, p. 134). The desert pupfish, <br />described from the San Pedro River near Benson, evidently inhabited <br />the then marshy canyon just below (Leopold, 1951, p. 310), but has <br />not since been collected from the Arizona part of that river. The <br />species was taken, however, 100 years after its original capture, in <br /> <br /> <br />r <br /> <br /> <br />