Red Ear Sunfish in Pennsylvania

Here are three redears that I caught at different stages of life. I caught these yesterday. Ed as well caught a "red ear" ?? in Pennsylvania in a place where he says is out of its range but possibly expandanding there or something like that. His is labled Pensylvania. I do not know where exactly maybe Ed can expound on that. Just thought I would show and get opinions as to Ed's fish. I think it is no doubt a red ear. And as usual I am sticking to it. LOL

The fish on the bottom right looks like a warmouth to me.

I'm not sure but the one on the top left looks like a gill. Hard to tell from that pic.

I knew when I posted that photo that someone would say warmouth. But naaaa... My fish was a little younger possibley but you can see some barring on the cheek of the oldest one from georgia. YOY warmouth are much more elongate. I have some and can post a photo of them. And even a warmouth as small as two inches looks exactly like an adult warmouth.

I am sorry. But there is no doubt. Here is a young warmouth compared to Ed's redear. ahh its all n the eyes. No pun intented. LOL All kidding aside A red ear is much more compressed than a warmouth in all but the most extreem young stages in life. I have some warmouth a third this size easily and they look exactly like this one.

The fish on the bottom right looks like a warmouth to me.

I'm not sure but the one on the top left looks like a gill. Hard to tell from that pic.

and I can assure you the one on top is not a blue gill. I caught many of these yesterday. Some larger some smaller and none were bluegill. There are fish that can be hard to tell appart but these are not some of them. Notice the extreem red finnage on the one on the top left you think is a blue gill. YOY blue gill do not have that. Their fins are extreemly transparent in my experience. Red spotted, red ear, YOY greenies, have red finnage when small but not blue gill. And the red ear when adult lacks red finnage all together. As the original post said different stages of life. If you ever caught a very young crappie it is almost solid blue. And I mean blue. Like a very blue rianbow fish. Elongate in shape, looks the shape of a rainbow fish not near as high as an adult crappie and almost solid blue. I have a photo of one somewhere if I can dig it up.

The extreems of youth "believe it or not" This is a young crappie caught in a cypress swamp in Louisiana. Down there when growing up I have never caught anything but black crappie. So I am going to assume this is a black YOY crappie. I am not assuming the fish just the subspecies IE black or white. This is definatly a crappie. And by the way he looked much blue'r when first pulled out of the water. Just trying to help. I can come across like a tiger sometime but Like another tiger said on this forum he is not trying to, but just confident and experienced. This is a crappie and the composite above with the four fish are all redears at different stages of life for the first three, and one from Penn. on the bottom right is def. a redear. Note the spots of the top right red ear on my first composite of four. It is more sugestive of the one that Ed caught up north.

I did not keep any of my young and all inbetween red ears. Guess I will head back there today and do some photography. Then I will catch some local blue gill as well and maybe this will help if someone would put them in the ID assistance pages. By the way the spot is only around 25 minuet drive. Hey what can I say I need little or no excuse to go collecting and photographing fish.

The bottom right fish (From PA) looks like a pumpkinseed IMO. Notice the spots all over the dorsal and caudal fin, none of the other fish in your pictures have them.

The bottom right fish (From PA) looks like a pumpkinseed IMO.

Without a high detail macro shot of the operculum and a ray and lateral scale count, I would have to agree with Sandtiger that it could also be a pumpkinseed, as that was also my first inclination without having it in my hand. If there's a high res image floating around of said fish in question, I'd be glad to get it PM and take a look if I can tease something more out of it.

I typically do stay away from juvenile sunfish questions... But this one is clear to me that it's either a redear or a pumpkinseed, especially since we have a limited range of choices due to it's northern exposure. You'll NEVER hear me chime in on sunfish caught in the southern reaches. I need a preserved body to stand behind any ID from there

Todd

I also believe the PA fish to be a pumpkinseed.

Yeah I should have known that wasn't a warmouth, but I definately can see pumkinseed. The orange on its underside as well as the shape of the dorsal is a give away. Still don't think its a redear!
Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that redear have any mottling on their rear dorsal like the fish bottom right picture does.

Oh and nativecan, I am the last person in the world you have to worry about offending. I have a thick skin and as my wife can attest am wrong most of the time about most things anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that redear have any mottling on their rear dorsal like the fish bottom right picture does.

That's what I tried to point out before. I know pumpkinseed have spots (mottling) on the soft dorsal and caudal like the fish in the bottom right picture. I have never seen a red ear with that feature.

I knew when I posted that photo that someone would say warmouth. But naaaa... My fish was a little younger possibley but you can see some barring on the cheek of the oldest one from georgia. YOY warmouth are much more elongate. I have some and can post a photo of them. And even a warmouth as small as two inches looks exactly like an adult warmouth.

Also look at the bottom right one that seems to have some barring on the head like a warmouth. Look how small the mouth is cmpared to that 2.5 inch warmouth and the eye on the red ear (bottom right) is way to small for a warmouth also.

Would be interesting Ed to see a follow up trip on that red ear location since you said it is not supposed to be there but some reading you did tells you it may be in that particular water shed. Let us know. At least let me know anyway. Boy when I catch a large redear here in Tennessee it is sure heavy as compared to the same size bluegill. They are a heavy fish, "taste good to LOL"

OK I must relent. It never occured to me that this could be a pumkinseed. I will check closer in Photoshop. I do think Ed sent me the full res. shot. But this def. not a warmouth. Small mouth. Not like mine you know like real big.

OK now I totaly relent. I chose the wrong photo to post it seems. This is the other Ed sent me. I think this fish belongs to the squash family.

My first thought when I pulled these fish out of the water was pumpkinseed. The yellow belly, small red-tipped ear flap, and pattern in the finnage all said pumpkinseed to me. Plus, pumpkinseeds are supposed to exist here natively. But that pattern on the body does not look like any pumpkinseed I've ever seen. I wondered if this was juvenile coloration. Daniel made the case for redear, and it does look very similar to the redear photos he sent me and used in the collage above.

The fish came from Turtle Creek, my local stream, from a location about a mile (I'm guessing) from my house. I wrote about that stream here:
http://forum.nanfa.o...p?showtopic=870
and I'll be posting an update there shortly.
Edit: Update done.

Here are the two best photos I took of the fish, cropped to save attachment space, but at original resolution:

 P1270044_Cropped.jpg   366.59KB   1 downloads
 P1270045_Cropped.jpg   375.77KB   1 downloads

It is not obvious from looking at the fish in person, but when zooming into the photographs, I can see the familiar reddish-brown spots of a pumpkinseed forming on the body of this fish, amongst the darker, less familiar pattern. It is the larger of the two I found yesterday, by the way, being 2.5 inches from snout to caudal peduncle. I will keep the fish and post another photo several months from now, and we will hopefully see the more mature coloration then.

The information I had on redears in Pennsylvania came from here:
http://www.tpwd.stat...pecies/sunfish/
It says:
"Redear sunfish were originally found in the southeastern US from Texas north to a line even with southern Illinois and east to the Atlantic Ocean. As a result of introductions, the range has been expanded and now extends west into New Mexico and north into Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania."

Based on this information, I might expect to find redears around here, maybe. I definitely expect to find pumpkinseeds around here. The ones I already have came from just up north in Butler County, maybe about 20 miles away.

In Peterson's description of pumpkinseeds, under "Similar Species", it says:
"Redear sunfish lacks bold spots on 2nd dorsal fin..."

This fish has spots on the 2nd dorsal fin. I believe we are looking at a pumpkinseed with juvenile coloration.

Personally, I am glad to have found these fish in that stream. Considering its history, the stream was affected by acid mine drainage (AMD). The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cleaned up a previously unreclaimed strip mine (dating from around 1900, maybe the late 1800's) in the stream's headwaters several years ago. With the removal of the AMD, the stream is now flowing clear again (except for sediment, but no orange AMD staining any more). The stream is recovering ecologically, and to find more species in it is good news indeed. I was really just looking for feeders, I did not expect to find these. I am very happy right now.

One more reason to call the Pennsylvania fish a pumpkinseed: The pumpkinseed has a smaller mouth than a redear. The fish in the photos show this, but it's hard to dicern unless you've seen the two species in person. I think the redear has one of the largest mouths of the Lepomis species. As does the warmouth and green sunfish. It's a quick field ID aid for this group. Of course you need something to compare your specimen to, be it another live fish or past experience. Pumpkinseeds, redears and bluegills can easily be separated from the other sunfishes by their long, pointed pectoral fins. So that would help with separating pumpkinseed from warmouth also. Unless they're hybrid...

Sorry, I just get into sunfish, so I have to shoot my (BIG) mouth off

The color and patterns look pretty similer to many of the pumpkinseeds I have caught. I'm very confident that the fish is a pumpkinseed and not a redear.

Since these are sunfish I have to add in my opinion too... Top left is a bluegill, top right i'm not sure, redear or bluegill, the botom left is the only one that is definately a redear and the botom right is definitely a pumpkinseed