Subterranean Fishes of the World

The common name is Hoosier Cavefish (Page et al. 2013, Adams et al. 2020)

Country

Types

Holotype: INHS 106675 75.1mm SL. Paratypes: INHS 40424 (12), INHS 60574 (1), INHS 102504 (4), LSUMZ 17419 (1), LSUMZ 17420 (1), UMMZ 90379 (2), UMMZ 113550 (1), UMMZ 114890 (2), UMMZ 144604 (1), UMMZ 146992 (1), UMMZ 146994 (3), UMMZ 157174 (1), UMMZ 157175 (1), UMMZ 160944 (1), YPM 25304 (2), YPM 25305 (1).

zoobank.org/688BC3D5-7773-41E8-961F-67E3E4902BE2

zoobank.org/References/C618D622-395E-4FB7-B2DE-16C65053762F

species-id.net/wiki/Amblyopsis_hoosieri

Distribution

Indiana, USA

Type locailty: Bronson’s Cave (White River Dr.) Spring Mill State Park, Lawrence County, Indiana, USA, 38°44'N, 86°25'W. Also recorded from: Twin Caves, near Mitchell, Lawrence County; Sibert’s Well Cave, beside Wyandotte Cave; Lost River, ca. 2 mi NE of Orangeville; Donaldson’s Cave, Spring Mills State Park, Lawrence County; Stream in Sibert’s Well Cave, Wyandotte, Crawford County; Stream in Sheep Cave, near Wyandotte, Crawford County; Stream in Bronson Cave, Spring Mill State Park, Lawrence County; “possibly” Donaldson farm caves near Indiana University; Twin Cave, Mitchell, Lawrence County; Donaldson Cave, Spring Mill State Park, Lawrence County; Blue Springs Caverns, Lawrence County.

Keith (1988, 1989) surveyed caves and springs in Indiana. He found populations in 45 sites in Indiana. Eleven of the 45 sites in Indiana recorded by Keith were springs (i.e. resurgences) which suggests that this species may exist also in the phreatic zone. Welch and Keith (1974) surveyed caves in the Hoosier natinal Fprest. A study of the ecology of Amblyopsis hoosieri (as A. spelaea) in Blue Spring Cave, Indiana was conducted by Welch (1972). [Romero ansd Bennis (1998) noted that "this species is known from about 1800 caves in Indiana”. This figure is clearly in error].

Habitat

Inhabits cool (8-17^oC) hypogean streams which have mixed mud/rock substrates in shoals, and mixed sand/silt substrates in pools (Burr and Warren 1986:219). Eleven of the 45 sites in Indiana recorded by Keith (1988, 1989) were springs (i.e. resurgences) which suggests that this species may exist also in the phreatic zone. A study of the ecology of A. hoosieri (as A. spelaea) in Blue Spring Cave, Indiana was conducted by Welch (1972).

Systematics

Until recently all populations of the Northern Cavefish, distributed in southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky, were considered to be Amblyopsis spelaea. However, genetic, morphological and geographical evidence show that the populations north (Indiana) and south (Kentucky) of the Ohio River are two separate species with Amblyopsis spelaea confined to Kentucky and with Amblyopsis hoosieri confined to Indiana (Chakrabarty et al. 2014).

There are nine known and named taxa in the Family Amblyopsidae. Of these six are subterranean fishes with the usual troglomorphic characters of reduced eyes and pigment and permanent subterranean existence, and three are epigean fishes with normal eyes and pigment. Recent molecular and morphological evidence produced by Hart et al. (2020) demonstrates that the relationship between these hypogean and epigean fishes is not simple. There are four major clades within the Family:

1. Typhlichthys subterraneus and Typhlichthys eigenmanni are sister species and sister to this pair is Speoplatyrhinus poulsoni.  However, T. subterraneus is quite clearly divided into two subgroups, one of which is closer to T. eigenmanni than it is to the other group of T. subterraneus. The only way to read the cladogram for this group is that it consists of three taxa, one of which is currently un-named. This clade are all subterranean fishes.

2. Two of the epigean fishes, Forbesichthys papilliferus and Forbesichthys agassizii, are sister to each other and their sister is the hypogean species Amblyopsis spelaea.

The two remaining clades contain one species each but their relationships to the other six species is ambiguous:

3a. Sister to the above groups is epigean Chologaster cornuta with hypogean Troglichthys rosae sister to all other taxa.

3b. Sister to the above groups is hypogean Troglichthys rosae with epigean Chologaster cornuta sister to all other taxa.

Given the fact that the distribution of Chologaster cornuta is very far from the distributions of the other taxa 3b seems the most parsimonious explanation. Amblyopsis hoosieri is not included in the paper of Hart et al. (in press) but one would expect it to be in group 2 above based on geography.

This analysis does not take into account the ten possible cryptic taxa, currently subsumed within Typhlichthys subterraneus, identified by Graening, Fenolio and Slay (2011), Niemiller et al. (2013) and Hart, Burress and Armbruster (2016).

Museum Holdings

Because Amblyopsis hoosieri was, for most of the time since 1842, thought to be Amblyopsis spelaea it is likely that there are numerous specimens in various museums in the USA that are actually Amblyopsis hoosieri.