Hayden T. Mattingly

The anesthetic properties of clove oil and tricaine methanesulfonate (MS-222) were tested in a laboratory setting on the southern redbelly dace (Phoxinus erythrogaster), a small cyprinid common to upland streams of the Mississippi River basin. We used southern redbelly dace as a surrogate species to indicate the lowest, most effective anesthetic level for our work with the closely related blackside dace (Phoxinus cumberlandensis), a federally protected species. Concentrations of 20, 40, and 60 mg L-1 clove oil and 20, 40, and 60 mg L-1 MS-222 were used to anesthetize southern redbelly dace...