Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

A tagging method for very small fish

Tessa K. Solomon-Lane, Hans A. Hofmann
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/437772
Tessa K. Solomon-Lane
1Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
2Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: tksolomonlane@utexas.edu
Hans A. Hofmann
1Department of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
2Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
3Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
4Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

The ability to reliably identify individuals over time and across contexts is essential in numerous areas of science. There are a variety of well-established methods for uniquely marking individuals, such as using paint or dye, visible implant elastomer tags, numbers or barcodes glued to the animal, passive integrated transponders, and more. For some species, life history stages, and/or experiments, however, these existing tagging methods are not sufficient. Here, we describe the method we developed for tagging juveniles of the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, which are too small for the methods used to tag adults. We used fishing line threaded through the needle of an insulin syringe to tie a loop of line through the dorsal muscle of juveniles as small as 10 mm standard length. Unique color patterns on the line can be used to distinguish among individuals. The tag is compatible with normal locomotion and social behavior, discernible to the eye and on camera, durable enough to last at least months, and the juvenile can grow with the tag. For A. burtoni, which is a model system in social neuroscience, the lack of an appropriate tagging method for very small juveniles likely contributes to the relative lack of early-life studies, and the same may be true for other small species. We expect this method to be useful in a variety of species and will facilitate the integration of organismal and behavioral development into more research programs.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted October 08, 2018.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
A tagging method for very small fish
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
A tagging method for very small fish
Tessa K. Solomon-Lane, Hans A. Hofmann
bioRxiv 437772; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/437772
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
A tagging method for very small fish
Tessa K. Solomon-Lane, Hans A. Hofmann
bioRxiv 437772; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/437772

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Animal Behavior and Cognition
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3482)
  • Biochemistry (7329)
  • Bioengineering (5301)
  • Bioinformatics (20212)
  • Biophysics (9985)
  • Cancer Biology (7706)
  • Cell Biology (11273)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6425)
  • Ecology (9923)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13292)
  • Genetics (9353)
  • Genomics (12559)
  • Immunology (7681)
  • Microbiology (18964)
  • Molecular Biology (7421)
  • Neuroscience (40915)
  • Paleontology (298)
  • Pathology (1226)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2130)
  • Physiology (3145)
  • Plant Biology (6842)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1271)
  • Synthetic Biology (1893)
  • Systems Biology (5299)
  • Zoology (1086)