Today I learned that carefully scooping up the algae clumps in an area of shallow water often yields baby sunfish. I found two distinct species, with the striped ones being much more common than the transparent ones. Any idea what these two are?
I'm fairly certain the one on the left is a baby longear. There were a lot of longear nests in the area, and I found a 1.5" longear that was similar to the transparent one but had face markings and longear patterns starting to develop. The one on the right isn't just an older form of that one, I found multiple striped ones the same size as or smaller than the clear one. It's not a bluegill, I've caught bluegills that small that are very distinctive. Is it a warmouth? I caught a nice warmouth near there, and I saw a couple more.
Markings on the container are centimeters and half-centimeters. They were tiny!