"On the surface of it, Sunday, August 12, 1973, was a day like any other dogday summer variety--hot, humid, hazy. It was a lazy, gone fishin’ kind of day. The forecast for the Tennessee Valley called for temperatures in the mid-80s with a slight chance of an afternoon thunderstorm; some locations would see a bit of rain but most would not. That, at least, was the surface of it; but that was just the thing; Dr. David Etnier wasn’t on the surface; he was below it, snorkeling in the cooling depths of the Little Tennessee River at Coytee Springs. It was one of those mornings that was destined to change a person’s life. Dr. Etnier happened upon a small two-inch fish that he was able to cup in his hand, and since he was an aquatic biologist and a professor of zoology at the University of Tennessee, he knew he had found something special; something he had never seen before. Dr. Bob Stiles from Samford University, who was with him that day, had not ever seen anything quite like it either. That is what separated their morning from the rest of the mornings being enjoyed up and down the river. "
Snail darter discoverd excerpt from Natural Histories published by the University of Tennessee Press
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