And the best species is…


Oncorhynchus clarkii

Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi (Westslope cutthroat trout) Rattlesnake Creek near Missoula, MT, June 11, 2015.

The Volvox wall art giveaway received twelve entries. The randomly selected winner was the fourth entry, Oncorynchus clarkii, the cutthroat trout. Cutthroats are the only native true trout in western North America (bull ‘trout’ are a char). They are the same genus as rainbow trout (O. mykiss), and they frequently hybridize with introduced rainbows (at least in Montana). These hybrids are fertile, so most ‘cutthroats’ (possibly including the one pictured above) are some degree of hybrid in areas where they and rainbows co-occur.

If you didn’t win, and you still want a framed Volvox aureus photo, the remaining seven are available here.

Here are the entries in order:

  1. Triceratops horridus
  2. Jaculus jaculus
  3. Otocolobus manul
  4. Oncorhynchus clarkii
  5. Pomatomus saltatrix
  6. Rollulus rouloul
  7. Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica)
  8. Thalassiosira pseudonana
  9. Salpingoeca rosetta
  10. Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris)
  11. Anomaloglossus beebei
  12. Cricetulus griseus

I used the Random Number Generator at random.org to choose among them:

Random number generator

Comments

Leave a Reply to Tabby Lavalamp Cancel reply