ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kansas City Artist Joseph R. Tomelleri graduated with an M.S. in Biology from Fort Hays State University (Hays, KS) in 1984. After working briefly as a botanist, Joe turned full time to illustration in 1986. Since that time, he has traveled more than 150,000 miles to collect live fishes for his scientific renderings. His 800+ illustrations have appeared in more than 350 publications, including 30 books, scores of magazines, advertisements, greeting cards, T-shirts, furniture, posters, trading cards, newspapers, and identification guides.

  One hundred sixty-one illustrations comprise his book, Fishes of the Central United States, co-authored with Mark Eberle.   A compilation of Joe's  work on trout and salmon has recently been published in Trout and Salmon of North America, written by Bob Behnke.

Kenai River Coho, Alaska

an unnamed sucker species from Rio del Presidio

fishing for native trout in Chihuahua, Mexico, mi puercocito!

Joe's current projects include:

Fishes of Maine-Fred Kircheis of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries has spearheaded an effort to document with illustrations some of Maine's unusual and unique fishes. Included are the blueback (Sunapee) trout and landlocked salmon, included in recent publications on the fishes in Maine.

Fishes in Oregon-Joe has been illustrating various Oregon fishes for the past 10 years under the tutelage of Dr. Doug Markle at Oregon State University and Phil Howell with the U.S. Forest Service. A 1999 collecting trip produced a number of lesser known fishes including the Pacific sea lamprey, sand roller, Willamette redside shiner, peamouth, largescale sucker, and several sculpins.

Great Lakes Fishes-Joe has produced a number of illustrations to be used in the new Great Lakes Aquarium, and traveled to Lake Superior in August of l999 to collect siscowet, kiyi, bloater, burbot, spottail shiner, and several other species.

Alaskan Salmon-Spawning salmon were the main target of Joe's August 2000 trip to the Kenai peninsula in Alaska.   Collections were made of dolly varden, spawning sockeye, chum, pink, and coho salmon.  Arctic char were collected across the Cook Inlet in the Lake Clark Wilderness.  The illustrations are featured in the book Trout and Salmon of North America.

Fishes of California-Joe worked with Dr. Peter Moyle to produce illustrations for Moyle's new book on inland fishes of California.  The illustrations include many of California's endemic minnows: Sacramento pikeminnow, Sacramento blackfish, hardhead, Sacramento splittail and others.

Trout and Salmon of North America-A book from Chanticleer and Simon and Schuster Free Press, authored by Robert Behnke and including more than 80 illustrations of trout, salmon, and whitefishes by Joe.

Nevada Fishes-Joe contracted with Bridget Nielsen of the US Fish and Wildlife Service to create illustrations for most of Nevada's desert fishes, including many rare and endangered pupfishes, springfishes, and spikedace.

Fishes of Idaho-A project by Don Zaroban of Albertson College.  Joe finished the illustrations for this upcoming book in 2004, including leatherside chub, bridgelip sucker, paiute sculpin, Wood River sculpin, Goose Creek Yellowstone cutthroat, and Duncan Creek redband trout among many others.

Fishes of Puget Sound-A huge work in progress by Ted Pietsch and James Orr of the University of Washington.  Joe has been contracted to provide some 240 illustrations of Puget Sound fishes. 

     February 1997-- José has in intense interest in native Mexican trout. A 1997 trip coordinated by Dr. Dean Hendrickson at the University of Texas produced Mexican golden trout, Rio Mayo trout, Rio Yaqui trout, and the Guzman trout, as well as the Mexican stoneroller, carbonera pupfish, several minnows and one species of darter.

     October 2000 -- Truchas Mexicanas, a binational group of scientists dedicated to the study and conservation of native Mexican trouts initiates collections in the mountains of Durango, Mexico.  Forays into the rugged canyons of the Rio del Presidio produced Presidio trout.  The Rio San Lorenzo trout was collected in northern Durango, as well as some unusual trout from Arroyo la Sidra.  Illustrations of these specimens are featured in Trout and Salmon of North America.

     October 2002 -- First of three collecting trips in the vast Rio Conchos watershed of Chihuahua in search of trout, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Truchas Mexicanas.  Widespread searches found clues but no native trout, only a few hatchery rainbows. Collection localities included a stream north of Nonoava where where the son of John James Audubon reported "trout" in l849.  

     February 2004 -- Thorough collections of native trout made in the mountains of Durango, west of Ciudad Durango.  Sites included canyons in the Presidio drainage, and streams south of the Rio del Presidio, providing first solid scientific evidence that trout are native to the rios Baluarte and Acaponeta, extending known southern range of native trout in the Sierra Madre.  Great assistance was received from  Walter Bishop & family of Ciudad Durango.  Walter's father made the first "scientific collections" of Presidio trout in l907, shipping them to the Smithsonian Institute.  Recent discovery of a new trout in the Rio Piaxtla watershed was augmented by collections from two new locations.   Many collections of trout also made from streams of the Rio San Lorenzo watershed. 

     February 2005 -- New evidence from historical archives prompted Joe and Truchas Mexicanas to return to Chihuahua and the Rio Conchos watershed in search of native trout.  This time the search was concentrated in western headwaters.  After many hours of talking with native Rarámuri and shocking local streams, a native trout, previously unknown to science was collected in a mountain arroyo, the first Oncorhynchus of rainbow/redband affinity known to be native to an Atlantic drainage.  Hatchery rainbows were discovered in another mountain stream, perhaps posing an imminent threat to purity of the native Conchos trout. Mexican golden trout were later collected in headwater streams of the Rio Oteros.  Collections of trout were  also made in the Tomochi watershed of the Yaqui drainage, including two new collection localities, and Rio Mayo trout were collected from Rio Candamena above Basaseachi falls. 

     March 2006 -- Our third trip to the Conchos headwaters was the most successful.   Three groups of collectors blanketed the headwaters, finding evidence, mostly through discussions with the Rarámuri that trout were indeed native to the area but had all but disappeared in the last 10 years.  We attribute the trout's demise to livestock, overfishing (principally with plant toxins), and  to detergents in the headwaters.  Searches from our first 5 days in the field turned up a few hatchery rainbows and one possible hybrid.    Then a third collecting attempt in one particularly promising arroyo finally yielded native trout.  This tiny stream has only 2 1/2 km of habitat though it appears to have a healthy population of trout.  This is the only known viable population of Conchos trout.  We also believe we have found a new species of sucker from the area.  Three attempts to locate trout in the arroyo where they were found in 2005 were unsuccessful, leading us to believe that population is probably extirpated -- not surprising since we had found no young of the year in 2005, and had been able to locate trout in only one pool.   The native fishes in these streams are principally Mexican stonerollers, Codoma, several sucker species (Catostomus spp.), and Gila sp.