Luis and others curious about otolith validation,
        The original paper about the use of otoliths for age validation
was by G. Pannella in _Science_ in 1971 (Sorry, no exact page refs.). Papers
using daily otolith ring counts to age young-of-the-year include:
D.L. Parrish et. al. 1994. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 123: 601-605.
J.N. Jarrett et al. 1993. Freshwater Biology 30: 409-417.
B.D. Taubert & D.W. Coble. 1977. Daily rings in otoliths of three species of
_Lepomis_ and _Tilapia mossambica_. J. Fish. Res. Bd. Can. 34: 332-340.
The Taubert paper describes in detail their experimental methods to validate
otoliths for daily age.
--Bruce Stallsmith
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  Biology Dept., University of Massachusetts/Boston