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Individual recognition of juvenile salmonids using melanophore patterns
Author(s) -
Garcia de Leaniz Carlos,
Fraser Neil,
Mikheev Victor,
Huntingford Felicity
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of fish biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1095-8649
pISSN - 0022-1112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8649.1994.tb01324.x
Subject(s) - biology , melanophore , juvenile , fishery , zoology , ecology , chromatophore
This article describes two small scale experiments designed to test whether variation in melanophore patterns could be used to identify individual juvenile salmonids that are too small for conventional marking methods. Three independent observers were able to identify 30 individual 0+ Atlantic salmon ( Salmo solar ) parr from photographs taken over an 8‐week period with 100% accuracy, on the basis of patterns of melanophores in the region of the eye and jaw. Counts of the number of melanophores in two particularly variable regions of the head of 14 newly‐emerged brown trout ( Salmo trutta ) from photographs of the same individuals taken on different occasions were strongly correlated. Eighty‐four per cent of the fry were correctly identified on the basis of spot number alone, without any reference to their patterns. Thus a combination of the number and position of head melanophores can be used for recognition of relatively large samples of very young salmonids. Problems with, and potential applications of this method are discussed.