Fishes of the Mio-Pliocene Western Snake River Plain and Vicinity.

Abstract

Hybridization and introgression permitted gene transfer from Catostomus to Lake Suckers in modern and MioPliocene lakes of Western United States. Lake Sucker genera, Chasmistes, Deltistes, and Xyrauchen, were sympatric with species of Catostomus (riverine suckers) in four large modern lakes and many fossil lakes in the Great Basin, Klamath, and Columbia-Snake drainages, and also in the Colorado River. Unique morphological traits in Lake Suckers originally included distinctive lips, jaw bones, neurocranial bones, and gill-rakers, but many of the original traits were lost or partly lost, and the remaining phenotypes are mixtures of intermediate morphological traits grading toward local species of Catostomus.