Bass-ically Amazing: New Bass Species Found in Southeast US
After fishing through the DNA of several bass from Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, researchers say they've found a new species. They propose naming the new fish the Choctaw bass, after the Native American tribe that hails from the region, and recommended the scientific name of Micropterus haiaka.
"We didn't set out to find a new species," Mike Tringali, a researcher with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said in a press release from the agency. "It found us."
The Choctaw bass looks like its relative, the spotted bass. The differences between the two are not easy to pick apart with the naked eye, one reason that the "two had never before been distinguished, despite decades of bass studies in the region," according to the release.
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