Siphateles bicolor
(Girard, 1856) · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Siphateles bicolor's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation4 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility231 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI10 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics10 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The Owens tui chub (Siphateles bicolor snyderi) was described in 1973 as a subspecies of tui chub endemic to the Owens River Basin in Eastern California, United States. The Owens tui chub is distinguished from its closest relative, the Lahontan tui chub, by scales with a weakly developed or absent basal shield, 13 to 29 lateral and apical radii, also by the structure of its pharyngeal arches, the number of anal fin rays, 10 to 14 gill rakers, and 52 to 58 lateral line scales. Dorsal and lateral coloration varies from bronze to dusky green, grading to silver or white on the belly. It may reach a total length of 30 cm. Owens tui chub are believed to be derived from Lahontan Basin tui chub that entered the Owens Basin from the north during the Pleistocene Epoch. Owens tui chub were historically common and occupied all valley-floor wetlands near the Owens River in Inyo and Mono counties. Owens suckers, Owens speckled dace, and Owens pupfish have a similar distribution to the Owens tui chub. Analysis of microsatellite DNA shows that Owens tui chub in tributaries of Mono Lake and the Owens River are now hybridized with Lahontan tui chub. Genetically pure Owens tui chub occur in water that is cut off from the Owens River, such as at Sotcher Lake near Reds Meadow; springs near the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery in Mammoth Lakes, California; and artificial ponds at the White Mountain Research Center and at Mule Spring in Inyo County. Typical habitat of the Owens tui chub Owens tui chubs prefer pool habitats with low current velocities and dense aquatic vegetation that provide adequate cover and habitat for insect food items. Owens tui chubs feed mainly by gleaning and grazing among submerged vegetation. Its diet varies seasonally; the dominant items in its diet are chironomid larvae and algae in spring, chironomid larvae in summer, hydroptilid caddisflies in fall, and chironomid larvae in winter. Spawning occurs from late winter to early summer at spring habitats, with spawning likely triggered by day length. In riverine and lacustrine or lake-like habitats where water temperatures fluctuate seasonally, the Owens tui chub spawns in spring and early summer, with spawning triggered by warming water temperatures. Females may produce more than 10,000 eggs. Tui chubs may reach sexual maturity at 2 years, and may live more than 30 years.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
Habitat & environment2
Other traits1
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Siphateles bicolor has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Siphateles bicolor carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Siphateles bicolor. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
Extinct — but the bar still reaches today. PBDB flags this lineage as extinct, yet its fossil range ends at 0.01 Ma — the present day. Both cannot be literally true. This is what it looks like when the youngest fossils fall inside the most recent slice of the time scale: the endpoint rounds to “today” rather than to the actual disappearance, which may be far too recent for an axis measured in millions of years to resolve. Read the young end of the bar (and the †) as the limit of the dated record, not as the date it died out.
How it livedPBDB
Record type232 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions5 of 14 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| CASlocation not on record | 52 |
| Oregon State Universitylocation not on record | 29 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 8 |
| University of Alabamalocation not on record | 5 |
| University of Nevada, Museum of Biologylocation not on record | 4 |
| Vancouver, CA | 4 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 3 |
| Los Angeles, US | 3 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 2 |
| Toronto, CA | 2 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 2 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| Washington, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Siphateles bicolor was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.