Fish

Norris Center Resources

The Norris Center houses a collection of approximately 400 fish species, including marine fish of the California Central Coast and a small collection of ancient fishes.  The collection is appropriate to support classes in vertebrate evolution and ichthyology. You can search our fish collections on Arctos. Contact norris@ucsc.edu for any questions about our fish collection.

Understanding the Effects of Temperature on Sex Ratio in a Sexually Dimorphic Fish Species

Norris Center Student Award winner Devin Chance studied how temperature might affect the sex ratios of mosquitofish in New Zealand and California geothermal ponds. Chance found that, as one predicts with temperature dependent sex determination, mosquitofish raised in higher temperatures tended to have a greater proportion of males. 

Climate‐Driven Habitat Change Causes Evolution in Threespine Stickleback

Norris Center Student Award winner Erik Beckman worked with EEB postdoc Simone Des Roches and EEB professor Eric Palkovacs to study how Threespine Stickleback populations have changed over time along California's coast. Eric measured proportion of heavy-plated and low-plated morphs, and found that the areas of overlap in the two morphs changed over the past 70 years. 

General Resources

California Academy of Sciences: Catalog of Fishes Database Search

Updated with the most recent and accurate fish names.

California Academy of Sciences: Species by Family/Subfamily in the Catalog of Fishes

Updated frequently and lists number of valid species by family.