The Endangered Watercress Darter’s Story is No Big Fish Tale
Story & Photos Nick Thomas
As a 24-year-old graduate student studying biology at the University of Alabama during the 1960s, Mike Howell made a discovery that most animal and plant researchers only dream of — he identified a new species.
Howell’s find, a small darter fish, might have been destined for notoriety only in the pages of scientific journals. But the brilliantly colored fish he named the watercress darter was found to only inhabit a handful of springs in Jefferson County — and nowhere else on the planet…