112-year-old Minnesota fish

As reported by the Star Tribune:

Sampling in the waters of west-central Minnesota and collecting catches from anglers, Lackmann found five bigmouth buffalo fish more than 100 years old — including a 112-year-old female taken from Crystal Lake near Pelican Rapids in Otter Tail County.

Bomb radiocarbon dating verified the fish’s age, making it the oldest age-validated freshwater fish ever taken. Lackmann and his research team recently published their findings in the scientific journal Communications Biology...

“Many people think buffalo fish are carp,” said Lackmann, 28, who grew up in Moorhead and Detroit Lakes. “They aren’t.  “Calling a bigmouth buffalo fish a carp is like calling a human a lemur.”..

Lackmann’s study of nearly 400 buffalo fish yielded an abundance of fish older than 80 to 90 years.  

And a photo of the otoliths from their publication in Nature Communications Biology: