Bartram’s bass. Photo: UGA
Trout anglers have long been accustomed to taxonomic changes—some of us are old enough to remember the seismic shock of Salmo gairdneri changing to Oncorhynchus mykiss—but the bass world has seen its share, as well. Recently, anglers in the Southeast learned that the bass they’ve been catching their whole lives might not be the bass they thought they were. And article by Chris Hunt in Hatch Magazine tells the whole story:
Late this summer, ecologists with the University of Georgia have officially declared the presence of two “new” black bass subspecies — the Bartram’s bass and the Altamaha bass. Both species were previously identified, but only recently, thanks to the use of mitochondrial DNA analysis, were they confirmed as distinct species of the black-bass lineage based in the genus micropterus (and, yes, smallmouth bass are in this genus, too).
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