About 2 months I went with my daughter & collected a trio of what I hoped were eastern black nosed dace. The one looked a little funny in the head. Now that its put on some size with regular feedings, I find its a chub in dace clothing. Has anyone noticed your local chubs taking on a pattern simulating your primary minnow species? Mine has a close pattern to my bnd's only the head shape is wrong. My male bnd was in spawning coloration when I caught them in a trickle of a creek (3 feet wide) by the local playground. I intend on catching a few more bnd's. For now they school with my fathead minnows. They took to flake food on the first feeding, which I give them earthworm flake prior to adding my bloodworms for my darters. They get flake in the morning & BW in the evening. I also noticed the chub prefers the slower end of my 55 gallon tank while the bnd's often can be seen riding the current from the power head. Sorry I only have video, they dont hold still for my cruddy camera. I fed the tank prior to video. The chub is the fat one.


Could this be a case of -

A. what camo works for one works for the other to avoid predation?

B. Hiding juveniles of the species among another species to reduce the chances of being lost to predators.

C. Imitating another species to make foraging on them easier such as on juveniles & eggs?

D. Its something else at work that I didnt think of.

Edited by exasperatus2002, 01 May 2012 - 11:45 PM.

I seen this before but never thought it was intentional. (I find in general juvenile shiners look more like each other than they do adults of their species and my ability to ID shiners all but vanishes under 3 inches of length),

I find juvenile fallfish, golden shiners, and common shiners all look very very very similar and have had creek chubs sneak in with blacknose and redbelly dace before.

Now you mention it commons do spawn on fallfish nests if what I read was right, maybe it is more than coincidence their young look similar.

video http://s250.photobuc...nt=100_3808.mp4

I have seen shiners in aquaria that changed color/pattern after several months in captivity. For example, comely and sandbar shiners, which are bright silver with little or no lateral stripe in the wild, developed a dark lateral stripe after several months of living in a tank with other lateral-striped shiners. Here's a sandbar shiner from Greensboro NC after a year of aquarium life: If I'd found this guy wild I would have been wondering what sort of hybrid.

Edited by gerald, 02 May 2012 - 01:12 PM.

O was tghinking, this could be an interesting study for someone to do scientificly. See if shiners actually do change to match other species when they are juveniles, maybe testing adults too, and a control tank.