Unintended Hybrids

Up till recently I was under the assumption that my community of sunfish in my 100g would never spawn. Apparently I was wrong. I noticed not long ago both the pumpkinseed and central longear had set up nest sights in the tank. I thought nothing of it because I didn't think I had a female Lepomis species in the tank and the other inhabitants wouldn't bother (a largemouth and rock bass). As it turns out the green sunfish is a female and yesterday I noticed she had spawned with both the pumpkinseed and longear, there are literally thousands of eggs spread across the tank. Not surprisingly the green was torn up and spent looking so I moved her into another tank to regain her strength and heal up a bit. The largemouth and rock bass are being ignored by the father fish and are able to swim about at their leisure (though the rock bass is a bit hesitant). Today I noticed that indeed most of the eggs are fertile. While the pumpkinseed appears to have eaten most of his the longear has been diligently watching over his clutch. I don't intend on taking any special action at this point unless the eggs actually hatch. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I have seen pumpkinseed/greens before but never a green/longear so I am a bit curious how they'll turn out. Most will likely end up as feeders should they survive. Anyway, I just thought I would share this bit of info because though I shouldn't be surprised I am. I never intended on breeding hybrid sunfish.

Parent fish. Pumpkinseed, longear, green.

Congrats on the spawn! I'm also interested in what those little longear/greens will look like.

I have seen a hybrid swarm (green x central longear) and presently have about 25 green x pumpkinseed. Male F1 hybrids of both are sterile and the female F1 hybrid green x pumpkinseed is fertile. Hybrids of both are clearly intermediate.

The hybrid (green x central) swarm was in the Hogthief Creek drainage of southern Illinois. Several males had nest within a colony of pure central longear with the hybrids holding the premium sites. Despite the hybrids being clearly larger with the best sites they could not attract females of any type. Ripe green females avoided the colony and the central longear females enetered nest of only the central longears despite the hybrids willingness to intrude (likely trying to cuckhold). One female hybrid of same was in same pool and associated mostly with central longears but did not appear to be part of reproductive effort (not thin or fat).

Edited by centrarchid, 25 March 2008 - 09:57 PM.

Though I did find this dialogue rather amusing, I went ahead and cleaned it up a bit so we could get back on track.