hybrid Enneacanthus species?

Can the Enneacanthus species crossing with each other just like the Lepomis species?

Also are mud sunfish cold tolerant? Because Peterson's freshwater fish guide says its lives in part of New york.

From what I've read, mud sunfish prefer colder water.

Can the Enneacanthus species crossing with each other just like the Lepomis species?

Also are mud sunfish cold tolerant? Because Peterson's freshwater fish guide says its lives in part of New york.

Some time ago I read of an account where banded and blue spotted sunfishes hybridize with each other in a pond or series of ponds.

Some time ago I read of an account where banded and blue spotted sunfishes hybridize with each other in a pond or series of ponds.

decades ago while I was in grad school I worked with a researcher from Duke University Marine Lab who was using hemoglobins to look at relationships among species. One group we looked at was Enneacanthus. Overall, we found good separation between the 3 species but there were some specimens from the the panhandle of Florida that were intermediate between obesus and gloriosus, indicating some possible hybridization. Unfortunately a fire in his lab destroyed everything. But I will say that I have not seen any specimens from either NC or SC that appeared to be hybrids.

Fritz

Some of the photos I've seen online look nothing like the hundreds of E. obesus I've handled in New England. I've always believed they showed E. gloriosus influence. In particular I note that the questionable ones have larger, more prominent dorsal and anal fins. Here is an example, I believe it's a Robert Rice pic and is reused all over the net [often w/o credit].
http://www.cnr.vt.ed...dedsunfish.html
Note also the amount of blue and the narrow and more numerous bands. I wish the eye looked natural, that's another subtle difference I've noticed. E. gloriosus eyes seem more bright red and the band through the eye is more pronounced and goes further above the eye.
FWIW, these are my own observations based on Massachusetts E. obesus and what few E. gloriosus I've seen in person [North Carolina and Alabama locales]. May just be local variation. I do think the fin size is pretty consistent though.