minnow from the UMMZ

To me this fish is obviously not a bluntnose minnow, we would need a little more info to be sure but there are a couple of things that are obvious if you take a close look. I took the picture from the UMMZ website and made a couple of marks to point out some features. I did the same with skipjacks photo to show the differences. I'm not doing this to offend anyone and I'm sure most specimens at the UMMZ are properly ID but I can't see this one being a bluntnose minnow. Maybe the actual specimen is a bluntnose and the wrong photo was put up for the cataloged specimen this can definitely be investigated further by someone at the university.

The mouth is terminal on the UMMZ fish I demonstrated this by drawing a straight line from the upper lip directly toward the center of the tail, I did the same on skipjacks fish and it clearly shows the mouth is subterminal and the line does not even intersect the eye. Next I circled the mouth on both specimens because the upper lip clearly protrudes further on skipjacks specimen than the UMMZ fish. Next look for the caudal spot which is a field mark for the bluntnose minnow, it is absent on the UMMZ fish (I know this is not as strong because we are looking for pigment on a preserved fish, but there should at least be something there). Finally to make my case that this is a Cyprinella there apears to be some black pigment on the rays of the rear part of the dorsal fin. This is a field mark of a couple Cyprinnella species including the spotfin shiner. Since this pigment is present on the dorsal, then if this was a bluntnose minnow it should also still have some pigment where the caudal spot should be. Finaly I do not see the short first dorsal ray that a bluntnose should have it appears the fin is just somewhat folded over about half way up on the first ray giving it this appearance. If someone would like to go examine this fish in person and possible post us a picture with the fulley extended dorsal fin and some meristic counts that would be awsome! Then again if it was a mix up when the cataloged specimens were pictured and placed on the net this may not help, or it could just show that the actual specimen is not the pictured fish.

UMMZ fish
[attachment=3211:minnow.jpg]

Skipjacks bluntnose minnow
[attachment=3209:bluntnose.jpg]

While I understand we have no scale with the live specimen, it appears that the distances between snout to eye and eye to preoperculum are also different. The melanophores on the preoperculum appear different between fish as well. I also see some differences in the lateral line direction.

Go figure it's a spotfin shiner.....that was mixed up with a lot of bluntnosed..
Here is the lot number and collection information.
Bluntnosed ummz 230924


I'm going to go find a rock to hide under now...

No reason to go hide I didn't mean to cause any embaressment just wanted to get the specimen re designated in the collection for proper future use. I personally have created 2 preserved collections the first of which was 1000's of unidentified preserved discarded Ohio EPA samples at Heidelberg College in Tiffin Ohio that I sorted through for 3 years to create a teaching collection for my professor and the two most common species of minnows in those samples were none other than P. notatus Bluntnose minnow and C. spiloptera Spotfin Shiner, needless to say I became very familiar with those two. On a side note as a result Heidelberg probably has the most complete collection of Ohio species of any small private school, I think when I was done there were nearly 30 cyprinid species.