Laserfiche WebLink
This species inhabits cold water streams and cold water lakes with adequate stream spawning <br />habitat present during spring. Field studies however, have indicated that water temperatures <br />averaging 7.8 °C or below in July may have an adverse effect on greenback fry (young fish) <br />survival and recruitment. In general, trout require different habitat types for different life stages: <br />juvenile (protective cover and low velocity flow, as in side channels and small tributaries); <br />spawning (riffles with clean gravels); over - winter (deep water with low velocity flow and <br />protective cover); and adult (juxtaposition of slow water areas for resting and fast water areas for <br />feeding, with protective cover from boulders, logs, overhanging vegetation or undercut banks). <br />Both water quality and quantity are important. Greenbacks, like other cutthroat trout, generally <br />require clear, cold, well- oxygenated water. <br />Greenbacks are opportunistic feeders over a wide range of prey organisms, but a large <br />percentage of the diet can be terrestrial insects. Greenbacks also feed on crustaceans such as <br />fresh -water shrimp, aquatic insects, and small fish. <br />Historically, the greenback is the only trout endemic to the headwaters of the South Platte and <br />Arkansas River drainages within Colorado and a small segment of the South Platte drainage <br />within Wyoming. <br />Humpback Chub <br />The humpback chub (Gila cypha), is a streamlined minnow with a concave skull and a prominent <br />nuchal hump at the occiput, the back end of head marked by a line separating scaleless and <br />scaled portions of epidermis with a caudal peduncle thin but not long snout that overhangs upper <br />hp and scales often minute or absent on keel. Adults are dark on top and light below and fins <br />rarely have yellow - orange pigment near base. Adults are usually range from 12 -16 inches long <br />and weigh 3 /4 to 2 pounds. The humpback chub historically ranged in the mainstream Colorado <br />River preferring slower eddies and pools downstream to below the Hoover Dam site, however, <br />present populations are restricted to areas in, and upstream, of the Grand Canyon. <br />Razorback Sucker <br />The razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), is brownish -green with a yellow to white - colored <br />belly and has an abrupt, bony hump on its back shaped like an upside -down boat keel. Razorback <br />suckers are found in deep, clear to turbid waters of large rivers and some reservoirs over mud, <br />sand or gravel and like most suckers feeds on both plant and animal matter. Razorback suckers <br />can spawn as early as age 3 or 4, when they are 14 or more inches long. Breeding males turn <br />black up to the lateral line, with brilliant orange extending across the belly. Depending on water <br />temperature, spawning can take place as early as November or as late as June. In the upper <br />Colorado River basin, razorbacks typically spawn between mid -April and mid -June. <br />Clay - loving wild buckwheat <br />Clay- loving wild buckwheat (Eriogonum pelinophilum), in the buckwheat family <br />(Polygonaceae), is a low growing, rounded, densely branched subshrub only to 4 inches high and <br />to 6 inches across, with woody stems at the base and herbaceous stems above. It has dark green <br />inrolled leaves that appear needlelike, and clusters of white to cream colored flowers with <br />71 <br />