Phyllopod Shrimp Populations of the Big Alkali Lake Drainage, Nebraska and Their Relationship to Young Pike (Esox lucius)

Authors

D. Bruce McCarraher, District Fisheries Supervisor, Bassett, Nebraska

Date of this Version

January 1959

Comments

Published in THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST VOL. 61(2):509-510. 1959. Copyright © University of Notre Dame. Used by permission.

Abstract

Random sampling with a fine-mesh dip net in the drainage pools south of Big Alkali Lake, Cherry County, Nebraska, indicated a spring abundance of anostracan and notostracan phyllopods, commonly called fairy shrimps and tadpole shrimps. Collections were made during the months of April and May of 1957 and 1958, and specimens were submitted to Dr. Ralph W. Dexter, Professor of Biology, Kent State University, Ohio, for identification. The 1957 collections were fairy shrimps of the species Chirocephalopsis bundyi while those of 1958 were tadpole shrimps', Lepidurus couesi. The presence of L. couesi establishes a new state record for this phyllopod.