by Bruce Stallsmith

The Barrington and Seekonk pictures were taken during the course of my search for the Spotfin Killifish, Fundulus luciae, in the summer of 1999. I had a small grant from the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program to explore the salt marshes of southeastern Massachusetts to try to ascertain the northern limit of this species' range. They are found as far south as Georgia, and then up the Atlantic coast. Many authorities have listed Long Island as their northern range, although Spotfins had been found in a marsh in Swansea, MA, in 1980 by Karsten Hartel of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, MA. Spotfins are a hard fish to find unless you're looking for them. They are a small, gunmetal gray fish whose preferred habitat is very shallow pools over deep mud at the upper edges of salt marshes. This habitat choice makes them invisible to the normal fish collecting method of using a seine in open water. So I visited a number of salt marshes looking for these fish. In short, I only found them along tidal tributaries to Narragansett Bay such as the Barrington River separating Barrington, Rhode Island, from Seekonk, Massachusetts, and the Palmer River in Swansea, Massachusetts. So this fish does exist in Massachusetts, but never more than about 5 km from the Rhode Island border. I failed to find these fish in tributaries to Buzzards Bay, or on the islands of Nantucket and Cuttyhunk.

The pictures of Barrington and Seekonk illustrate the muddy, marshy nature of F. luciae habitat. You need hip waders to comfortably collect these fish.

This is the site in Barrington, Rhode Island, where I found Fundulus luciae along the Barrington River, about 5 km downstream from East Providence, RI. There is actually a shallow pool in the middle of the Spartina grasses. July, 1999.

Two male F. luciae displaying to each other in an aquarium. The ocellus in their dorsal fins is unmistakable ("spotfin"), although observers should be aware that many F. heteroclitus males have such a spotfin also. Photo courtesy of Fritz Rohde.

This is Seekonk, Massachusetts, upstream and across the Barrington River from the first photo. The river is tidal here, and it is slack low tide. Many F. luciae were found in the chain of muddy puddles leading down to the river, and only luciae were found. You can also see my footprints in the near foreground. If you look closely in the near part of the shot, you can see little mudpiles where a net full of mud and fish was dumped to pick out the fish. July, 1999.