large, old, mature, male Lepomis gibbosus outgrow red operculum

Hi NANFA,

Please see attached photo.

This is a photo of a large, old, mature, male Lepomis gibbosus which has outgrown his red gill cover. Yes or no?

I have studied the photos and pictures in "Freshwater Fishes of the Northeastern United States: A Field Guide" by Robert G. Werner and "Fish of New York Field Guide" by Dave Bosanko. I have attempted to contact the latter author. I have looked at dozens of google images including searching keywords "nanfa Lepomis gibbosus" & "nanfa pumpkinseed." Last but not least NANFA's Pictorial ID Key - Lepomis Genus. All photos of Pumpkinseed contain the red operculum.

The fish in this photograph is from a large pond in the Catskills of New York state. This pond contains three species: Brown Bullhead, Smallmouth Bass, and Pumpkinseed Sunfish. I have caught literally thousands of fish from this pond over many years. The Bullhead and Bass are not stunted. The Pumpkinseed are. The last two springs I have culled as many Pumpkinseed as possible, concentrating on gravid females (they tend to congregate in one specific area). I release any male fish >5oz. Two accurate handheld scales are used, one Rapala and one Berkeley. Very few weigh >5oz. There is an inverse correlation between fish weight and amount of red on the operculum. The specimen in the photo is the largest so far, 8oz. All the red as vanished.

Every single Sunfish I have ever caught from this pond has had at least some red on the operculum, therefore I categorically state that other Lepomis species are absent from this body of water.

Yes or no?

I don't see a photo

Sometimes they lose all or part of opercular tabs from injuries. Maybe it's a dietary condition with this one (sight unseen) if he's old, and living in an overcrowded pond. And there's always random individual variation for reasons entirely unknown.

OK well being the absolute technological wizard genious that I am I can't shrink down the photos to fit this forum... I did however make a short video. Try clicking on it, if it doesn't work then just copy & paste the URL: http://youtu.be/Q9CX3Ao2JZc

Fundulus: As you'll see in the video this one did not lose all or part of opercular tabs from injuries, both are intact. As far as dietary condition or random individual variation with this old one... no way. Of the literally thousands of Pumpkinseeds I've pulled from this pond and weighed there is absolutely an inverse correlation between fish weight and amount of red on the operculum. It just so happens that this one is relatively enormous, the biggest of thousands. This just has to be documented somewhere. I know most anglers consider them merely a "child's fish" but hasn't anyone anywhere ever taken note of this? None of the books say it. None of the websites say it. I'll try to take photos of a 3oz, a 4oz, & a 5oz. You will see the red becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. And I'm not talking about proportionate to body size, I'm talking about absolute size. It's as if the black area of the opercular tabs just grow over the red area. They become less colorful as they age, like Oscars (Astronotus ocellatus), the young are the most colorful, the older ones duller.

Are any of you experienced NANFA guys near the Catskills? I will take him to you. He's stressed out today from being handled twice already. Maybe next week I'll try to get some more footage.

Anyway I appreciate your guys' time with this. I don't personally know anybody that can relate to this, or that would even care.

Looking at him I go with the low frequency random variation. He's an odd one out of a large number, which happens in nature.

low frequency random variation? the biggest fish in the pond just happens to be like this? you agree it's a Pumpkinseed right? no hybrid whatsoever? I'll get some more footage of different sized specimens later next week weather permitting and you'll see. Does anybody have the books American Aquarium Fishes or Freshwater Fish of the Northeast? I will gladly order them from amazon if they have anything to confirm what I'm trying to say here... ..

Funny things happen in nature at very low frequency, sometimes from slight changes during a stage of embryonic development; no red tab color is a pretty minor thing. It's a p-seed for sure.

Fish in question looks to have bluegill in it. Two independent characters support this in my opinion. Opercular tab longish like with bluegill or longear. Markings on opercular and pre-opercula look too thick and brownish, also like hybird involving bluegill.

Hmm, I can't see the fish well enough to be sure, but upon sampling monster Redear from Easter Lake last week we noticed that some had dull opercular tabs with little color. We caught ~5 of these lunkers (iirc) and the going from smallest to largest the opercular tab was progressively less vivid. I also went to the Mississippi Aquarium three weeks ago, and in one of their displays were huge, obviously very old Redears that lacked any color whatsoever but were definitely not Bluegill since they had a margin on their opercular tab and were very silvery. Since I have trouble telling little Pumpkinseeds and Redears apart, they are likely closely related and so it probably holds true for Pumpkinseeds too. (Another Lepomis example: teeny tiny greens about 2-3" long are usually more colorful than their larger 5-8" counterparts.)

EDIT: Haha, I also want to mention that I love how you talk to the fish in the vid. I do that all the time and I think that the DNR folks are starting to believe that I am wacko!

Edited by Orangespotted, 11 June 2012 - 07:02 PM.

ok guys as promised, the first two vids are of relatively large P-seeds i.e. 5oz each and they were released, try to make out the gill flaps, the last vid is of a few that were culled: ]

and,

You have a hybrid swarm of (pumpkinseed x bluegill). Last video has two fish that not pure pumpkinseed and by all apperances have bluegill in them. They are same fish you identified as not having red on opercular tab. Step back, ignore opercular tabs, and look at fish as a whole. More differences will leap out that link those two fish yet distinguish them from others.

A single bluegill in pond that you did not catch could cause this. If happened only once a couple / few years back, then that would explain hybrids occuring only in larger size / older age classes.

Edited by centrarchid, 12 June 2012 - 06:37 AM.

You have a hybrid swarm of (pumpkinseed x bluegill).

Ah, much nicer views of the fish, and now I agree with Centrarchid. Your fish are young and vivid yet, not near old enough to start losing color. As for not seeing other Sunfish species in the pond, all it would really take is a single female Bluegill to give you a bunch of hybrids. Since she wouldn't have any other options to spawn with, she would be forced to spawn with the Pumpkinseed males.The Pumpkinseeds would guard their nest just as vigorously as any other spawn, ensuring that about a few dozen of the hundreds of fry make it to a relatively decent size. Anyways, cool fish you have there.

Yes centrarchid you are right. Once I started looking at the whole fish I started seeing vertical bands on the stomach and ribs. It makes sense to me now. The more L. macrochirus vs L. gibbosus in the individual the larger that individual would grow and the less red/orange would be evident on the operculum, even to the point of none. A random sampling of Bluegill state records vs Pumpkinseed state records clearly shows Bluegill to be a much larger species, and begs the question: How much Bluegill "swarm" is actually behind nearly every supposed Pumpkinseed record? Many supposed records were set before Internet, before anglers even had access to resources such as NANFA.

A few years ago here in New York State the records for Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) were all abolished because it was discovered that they were not pure S. fontinalis after all, but they were actually part Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) which is a much, much larger species. Actually they were being called "Splake" (Salvelinus namaycush X Salvelinus fontinalis). The first two letters (Sp) being taken from the name Speckled Trout (a local name for Salvelinus fontinalis) and the last four letters (lake) being taken from the name Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush). The "record" Brook Trout was merely the fish that contained the highest ratio of S. namaycush vs S. fontinalis. Entries for Brook Trout records nowadays are accepted only from waters where they are certain to be pure. And todays' records are smaller fish than yesterdays' "records."

I contend most "Pumpkinseed" records are actually "PumpGills".

I guess I can stop my culling project now. I would only succeed in making the pond more Bluegill-ish and less Pumpkinseed-ish. And Pumpkinseeds, in my opinion, are much more beautiful. Tiger Muskies... now they might do my culling for me...

I appreciate your time. It's been a big help for me. I couldn't get this solved anywhere else. I leave you with one last video of two fish that I am now sure are PumpGills:

And,

It is good you caught onto some odd variation. Videos neat but also include stills as such typicall provide more resolution.

We have a quary initially stocked about 3 years ago to have pumpkinseed, redear and warmouth sunfishes. See following thread: http://forum.nanfa.o...que +assemblage Some yahoo stocked at least one bluegill in and it crossed with a pumpkinseed sometime last year producing a hybrid swarm. The hybrids are amoung the largest of the year class. They are well on their way to look like what you have although the bluegill may not be the same subspecies you have. Assuming no pure broods of bluegill are produced, all evidence of bluegill should drop out within a few years since the hybrid has very low fertility (based on lab trials a few years back and literature) and fact hybrids males have a hard time picking up chicks. Hybrid swarms pop up pretty regularly among sunfishes but generally they do not lead to introgression where hybrids breed back to one parent or another. We are forcing some of that now for food-fish production and most of the sunfishes that are already sympatric do not readily exchange DNA between populations even though they do occasionally hybridize. Hybrids that introgress well involve the bluegill subspecies with each other and sometimes the black basses. Bluegill and pumpkinseed in my opinion are not that closely related. I thought redear and pumpkinseed might merge into one but in my situation they do not appear to be.


A couple years ago a picture of a fish in contention for Missouri state record longear sunfish was presented to me because someone was skeptical about its purity. It was a dead ringer for my first generation (F1) northern bluegill (female) x longear (male) hybrids and about the same size to boot. I said hybrid; it still got state record. I have had some state record sized lab reared longear but that is cheating.