another Kansas City (Missouri River)- This may be a tough one.

I netted some of these when I scooped those gar last week. This specimen is 3/4" long. I thought it might be some kind of worm except it had cartoon sized eyes. I dropped one in alcohol just in case I dont see any more, but I got it out today and put under my toy microscope. Here is what it looks like at 10x. Forgive the bad light and blur, that came standard with this microscope.



and here is my pieced together panoramic at 60x



From the head shot, I have to think this is some kind of fish. The only thing I can think of with this body shape is a gar, but there is no long mouth.

I was also thinking eel, but since they breed in the ocean, thats probably not it. We have a lamprey, but Ive been told they have tiny eyes. This thing baffles me. Im going back today to net, hopefully I can net some more.

Im going to regret calling this a tough one, because Im sure theres someone out there that knows exactly what it is.

I'm not at all certain as nothing that should be in your area fits it very well as far as I can tell.... What do you know about Spring cavefish (Forbesichthys (Chologaster) agassizi) populations in your area?? (something that should be far to your east)

Not a Lamprey and Not a Gar..... Esox????? I really do not think so but not sure ????

You may really want to send this one out for an ID..

I went and caught some more. They are about the most abundant fish out there- I pull up 10 or 20 with every swipe of the net. Problem is they are dead as soon as they hit the net. I have yet to find a live one. But I got a lot more samples. I will try to get some better pics later. Also caught some Beavertail fairy shrimp. I had forgotten how big they get. Extremely cool.

Problem is they are dead as soon as they hit the net.

Now that sounds like a typical Notropis fry....Again I'm not really sure what it is though..

Problem is they are dead as soon as they hit the net.

OK, that's easy then. Labidesthes sicculus!

Seriously though either Dredcon or Jan Hoover (not on this forum AFIK) both work with larval fishes, and might know.

it really does kinda look like a silverside. We have the brook silverside in the southeast part of the state, I think this would be quite a range extension.

It looks very similar to larval herring that i've seen, so it could be a larval shad.

Long and skinny, looks like larval shad to me, but its hard to say with out myomere counts.