Natural History
It is believed that a sub-population of Lahontan cutthroats became isolated in Silver King Creek above Silver King Canyon Gorge after erosion made the gorge impassible to trout swimming upstream, probably between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago. The upstream population then adapted to local conditions independent of the larger population below that had evolved in pluvial Lake Lahontan during the Pleistocene. Although Lahontan cutthroats are heavily spotted, the isolated sub-population lost virtually all spotting, perhaps because spots made fish more visible and susceptible to predation in the ultra-clear and shallow mountain stream. Paiute cutthroats are also notable for a purple coloration, whereas Lahontan cutthroats have bronze coloration. The Paiute strain must have adapted to a diet mainly of insects and become less migratory since juvenile fish swimming downstream in search of larger waters would have passed below downstream barriers and left the isolated gene pool.
Read more about this topic: Paiute Cutthroat Trout
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or history:
“Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o’-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly has shown me the causeway to it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)