SOLDIER FISH, THE

LEGEND HAS IT THAT ON THE EVE of a particular Civil War battle, one army stared nervously across a narrow creek at the other. Obviously, the morrow promised a cataclysmic confrontation, with many lives lost and, perhaps, the war's tide turning. Should they risk it all and attack? Would victory be assured? So, in the best time-honored fashion, the officers kneeled and prayed (very loudly and very long), invoking the Almighty to please show them a sign that they would, indeed, successfully smite their foes. Soon after, a private crept down to that creek and returned with a much-needed bucket of water. And in it wriggled the sign they had sought.

As Confederates told it, the bucket contained a single fish, just three inches long, but the likes of which no one had seen before. Brilliant reds and blues splotched its body and head, with similarly hued bands on its dorsal fins. In addition, the blue-green anal fin sported a central red-orange star, while nine rectangular bars decorated its sides. To the prayerful army, the creature's Stars & Bars obviously predicted TOTAL TRIUMPH! (Of course, in the Yankee version of the story-which likewise ends victoriously-the fish exhibited only the Union red, white, and blue!)

Although brand-new to the above combatants, the "soldier fish" (now more commonly called a rainbow darter) is well known to ichthyologists. Like other darters, this species lacks an air bladder to aid flotation, so it scoots or darts along stream bottoms in short, erratic bursts, attacking and dispatching prey before encamping (albeit briefly) on the bottom again. But unlike other darters, which involve a few troops deployed to a single watershed, rainbows fan out broadly (and abundantly) in the Great Lakes and Mississippi and Tennessee River systems, ruthlessly driving out all competitors in pursuit of total Darter Domination.

In Alabama soldier fish command the northern tributaries to the Tennessee River, especially gravel- or cobble-bottomed streams with numerous riffles and runs. There, juveniles post a wary watch on their elders, with the latter bivouacking in deep, swift riffles while the former bunk in quieter areas near the margins of runs or pools. Rations include a variety of insect larvae, especially mayflies, blackflies, caddis flies, and midges. David Starr Jordan (1851-1931), the nestor of North American ichthyology (and former president of Stanford University), captured the habits and personality of this "gaudiest of all freshwater fishes" thusly:

The Rainbow Darter is a chubby little fish, as compared with other Darters. In its movement it is awkward and ungraceful, though swift and savage as a pike. One of the mildest of its tricks . . . is this: It [will] gently put its head over a stone and catch a water boatman ["walking" on top of the water] by one of its swimming legs, release it, catch it again and again release it, until at last the boatman, evidently much annoyed, [swims] away out of its reach.

Ah, fun with food!

Mating occurs from late spring to early summer-April to july in Alabama. A rainbow stud, resplendent in his best dress uniform, stakes out and defends his riffle against all invaders, threatening would-be rivals with vicious fin-to-fin combat. (And size does matter: the larger the male, the greater the intimidation.) A female-marked by drabber colors and a lascivious smile-cautiously approaches from downstream, then buries her ventral side in the substrate at the foot of the riffle, where her soldier suitor promptly fertilizes three to seven eggs. Forming a shifting, protective guard around his beloved, the male marches her a short distance upstream where she repeats her half self-burial. The happy couple continues this exhausting regimen over and over until about eight hundred eggs are deposited. (At ease! Take five! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!) The tiny, unprotected eggs hatch in ten to twelve days, while the larval stage lasts another fifty, by which time the juveniles quickly grow to fifteen millimeters long-that is, unless a marauding muskie or pernicious pike gobbles them up. And by their first anniversary of "enlistment," male recruits vigorously defend the breeding riffles, thrashing smaller comrades (and servicing any females) who dare to enter.

That's the story of the soldier fish. Now, I'm not sure which side prayed-and which side triumphed-in that legendary battle. But the fish remains, patrolling clear, gravelly streams of the Middle States and assaulting all intruders. Not just an omen of war-time victory, but a warrior all its own.

Larry Davenport is a professor of biology at Samford University, Birmingham.

Copyright University of Alabama Press Summer 2004
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