ONTOGENY AND DESCRIPTION OF EGGS, LARVAE, AND EARLY JUVENILES OF THE FOUNTAIN DARTER, ETHEOSTOMA-FONTICOLA

Fountain darters, Etheostoma fonticola, maintained in aquaria, deposit ed adhesive eggs on yarn strands of artificial spawning mops. Eggs wer e collected by hand from the mops and hatched in small plastic contain ers. Diameters of the eggs ranged from 1.2 to 1.4 mm. The eggs had an indented egg envelope and a wide perivitelline space. Eggs incubated a t 20 degrees C started hatching on day 4 after fertilization and conti nued hatching through day 7. Mean total length of larvae at hatching w as 3.6 mm. Larvae had 15 preanal myomeres and between 18 and 20 postan al myomeres. Pigmentation consisted of scattered melanophores over the body and ventral yolk sac, and melanophores radiating ventrally from the oil globule along the vitelline network, and complete melanophore coverage of the optic lobe. Larval development was similar to other me mbers of the darter subgenus Boleichthys.