Dollar and Longear sunfish

I live in Ooltewah Tennessee. I catch longeared sunfish in our local streams. I also catch some small ones that have very short ears and look more elongate. Could these possibly be dollar sunfish. I am from originally Lafayette Louisiana. I have opportunity to catch dollar sunfish when I visit my family there. Is there a dead giveaway from telling young longears appart from dollar sunfish? I may try to get a good photo of one. I have him in a forty gallon tank. He is now residing with my Oscar in there but he is too big to fit in Oscars mouth and there is plenty of cover for him to avoid Oscar. The Oscar shows no interest in him whatsoever anyway. Is it possible that the range of the dollar is here in Ooltewah which is a southeast suburb of Chattanooga Tennessee.

PS: This photo is of my Oscar when he was a bit younger.

Welcome to the site!

That area is too far East for natural populations of Dollar sunfish in Tennesee. It's possible introduced fish live there but a photo might clear this up.

I can't really tell you how to differentiate longears from dollars - I'm sure if I bothered to crack my Peterson's it would be obvious, but I'm lazy and I just say if it's in a river it's a longear; if it's in a pond it's a dollar.

nativecajun
I'm no expert, but here's how I tell mine apart. Mature male western dollars almost always have white streaks/spots on their opercular flaps and I've heard females do, too, but I've never seen it. But I have never seen a longear with said markings. Also, the opercular flap angles up at approximately 45 degrees from horizontal where the longears opercular flap generally runs parallel with horizontal. Female longears are [bear in mind I'm red/green colorblind] more of a green grass color of green rather than the purplish-green of female dollars. Young longears appear to have more orange and light greens and are more stongly barred whereas young western dollars have more bluish-purples and aren't very barred at all. As adults, breeding male longears appear to have more vivid blue and reds whereas dollars often have more purple/green and reds. Male longears I've seen often have the "humped" shoulder look where the dollars are more overall "round" looking. I'd also expect to find longears near current and if dollars are found in the same stream, I'd expect to find them in weeds and pools and other still water haunts. Once you've seen adult male dollars next to adult male longears, I doubt you'd confuse them; however I wouldn't be that sure with females of the two species. These are empirical observations and probably only accurate with the specimens from the locales from which my fish were collected so your results may vary.

Bruce