Blue colored Bluegills?

Gill rakers will be the cartilagenous structures attached to the gill arches. I have photographs of various species but can not find on such short notice so attached will have to do.

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A photograph of isolated gill arches will hopefully enble us to discern whether they are short and stout (redspotted/blackspotted/longear) or long and slender (bluegill / green sunfish)

Edited by centrarchid, 18 May 2008 - 09:53 AM.

No telling when I'll catch another one of these fish, but I'll step up the effort to catch one. So to check the gill rakers, do I have to remove the fishes head?

No telling when I'll catch another one of these fish, but I'll step up the effort to catch one. So to check the gill rakers, do I have to remove the fishes head?

That would be best but you can also just rip out the entire gill basket. Latter option will help us see pharyngeal teeth. I will resume contact later tonight on this.

They still looks like a bluegill as I have seen these "blue" bluegills before. These blue bluegill in my area, are usually found in the mouth of Mississippi river.

Just for my personal education: Is blackspotted sunfish now the recognized common name of Lepomis punctatus? I had thought it was just spotted sunfish, as distinct from redspotted sunfish, Lepomis miniatus.

Also, as a former native of Ohio who has sampled a lot of water there, I have never seen anything close to either Lepomis punctatus or Lepomis miniatus in Ohio. Just saying. Certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of a release. If that's the case, I'd love to get confirmation of it as would researchers and agencies in the state.

Ok some of you guys are taking this a little too far... I am 100% sure those are just bluegill. As to why their coloration is off a little I'm not sure I can give an exact explanation for that but I have a couple of ideas. I have caught a lot of bluegill in Ohio and it seems when you get them out of rather turbid waters they are often lacking much of their usual coloration and can look kinda of silvery blue in color over their whole body. Another possibility (which I am sort of leaning towards) is that the fish has a heavy infection of some kind of parasite. I have seen bluegill and other sunfish that seemed to act relatively normal but had a heavy pasasite load that seemed to be effecting their color. The third possibility is that they could be a color morph. It is not uncommon to find a blue or yellowish orange (lacking al dark pigments) strain of a species. It is likely that these occur naturally although are much more common in hatcheries and the aquarium trade in most species because the odd colored ones don't get selectively fed on by predators in captivity. The following is a couple of examples of odd color morphs.

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A redbreast sunfish lacking any dark pigments like a rosey red, this was taken at the Tennessee Aquarium

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This is from a co-worker of mine from spirit lake in Iowa

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This last picture is of an oddly marked yellow perch found in middle branch of nimishilin creek in Stark Co Ohio. These are something I have found several times in NE Ohio and no one seems to know what they are, just some odd color form of yellow perch. Sorry for the poor picture, I didn't take it since I am looking at it behind the photo tank, this was several years ago before I even had a camera.

Just for my personal education: Is blackspotted sunfish now the recognized common name of Lepomis punctatus? I had thought it was just spotted sunfish, as distinct from redspotted sunfish, Lepomis miniatus.

Yes Mark it seems that the common name is leaning toward blackspotted rather than just spotted. It is published that way in Fishes of Alabama which is the most recently published big state fish book (that I am aware of) that would cover the range of those two species.

Brian, you're invoking parasite load for these odd fish; which parasites do you see as doing this? I'm curious which ones would have that systemic an effect. Parasite ecology is a subject that's still not well known. A year ago we stumbled upon the realization that local black darters, Etheostoma duryi, in north Alabama often have an amazing amount of Coccidia along their gut tubes; the odd thing was that males have a lot more than females. And the population of larger sized black darters we examined had more parasites than the smaller popuIation. I have idea what it might mean.

As for color morphs... local populations often have a lot of variation within them, the raw material of natural selection. But they still look like very odd bluegills at best.

Further discussion worthless until more characters can be seen. Gill rakers should be checked.

Agreed with Smbass, these blue sunfish are just normal bluegills with freaky condition. I don't see any spots or red spot in the ear which the blackspotted sunfish supposed to have that. I've fishing for my whole life and I often caught some blues in Minnesota. I don't think blackspotted sunfish are in Ohio waterways anyways. The blue sunfish in the picture is screaming "Im Bluegill!"

smbass,

the yellow perch example looks like a polyphenism. Different colorations and what appears to be different mouth / total length ratios. Can yellow perch of a given population become specialized into different feeding guilds like bluegill and white crappie with a simultaneous change in morphology? Some cichlids and spade-foot toad larvae do it too.

As far as what kind of parasite I wouldn't have a clue... I am just going off experience from finding bluegill and a pumpkinseed in particular recently that are very faded from their normal coloration and they also visibly (when looked at in hand) had a significant amount of worms/grubs of some kind under their skin.

As far as the picture with the two perch I couldn't tell you much about it other than location. It was given to me a few years back when I was hunting around about the "zebra" perch I had found without ever learning much of anything.

It just seems that there is a lot of variation out there and much of it we probably don't even know about yet. I just wanted to point out some examples, as one possible explanation for these odd colored bluegill.

Regardless of the identity of the fish in question, they appear faded. I thought much of the coloration exhibited by animals is in part a indicator of health / resistance to parasitism, therefore an extremely high parasite load could manifest itself with a reduction in coloration. The fish still appear too chunky and the opercular tabs and overall appearance are not consistent with what I expect for bluegill collected from any location.

No telling when I'll catch another one of these fish, but I'll step up the effort to catch one. So to check the gill rakers, do I have to remove the fishes head?

Seems to me that a far better option would be to preserve the fish in alcohol and mail it to someone who knows how to do this. Guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you just euthanize the fish and then drop it in a jar of 70% isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol for short-term preservation? I did this with some bass that I was no longer able to keep a couple years ago so that they could be added to my undergrad college's teaching collection. It seemed to work fine for the few days that I had to hold them before mailing them.

I remember doing a lot of examining of gill rakers in college, and it's not an especially easy thing to do if you don't know what you're looking for. Getting a photo that shows enough detail also might not be possible.

Seems to me that a far better option would be to preserve the fish in alcohol and mail it to someone who knows how to do this. Guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you just euthanize the fish and then drop it in a jar of 70% isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol for short-term preservation? I did this with some bass that I was no longer able to keep a couple years ago so that they could be added to my undergrad college's teaching collection. It seemed to work fine for the few days that I had to hold them before mailing them.

I remember doing a lot of examining of gill rakers in college, and it's not an especially easy thing to do if you don't know what you're looking for. Getting a photo that shows enough detail also might not be possible.

I trust photographs. Have known samples for comparison. Raker systems of bluegill and green sunfish very easy to distinguish from most of the other Lepomis spp. Ultimately looking at intact animals inhand should be used, especially if bluegill appear to be excluded.

Edited by centrarchid, 19 May 2008 - 09:13 AM.

I trust photographs. Have known samples for comparison. Raker systems of bluegill and green sunfish very easy to distinguish from most of the other Lepomis spp. Ultimately looking at intact animals inhand should be used, especially if bluegill appear to be excluded.

Well, in any case seems like sending a preserved (or even better *live*) animal to you, Brian, or Bruce would be a quicker and more reliable method of getting the definitive ID... I think there are probably a bunch of us lurkers wondering what the outcome will be.

if thats blackspotted sunfish then where is white edges on the fins? And where is speckles over on its body? Also the blackspotted are not found in Ohio. The blue sunfish in picture are just 100% bluegill with fading or stressed out with no doubts. Whats big deal?

if thats blackspotted sunfish then where is white edges on the fins? And where is speckles over on its body? Also the blackspotted are not found in Ohio. The blue sunfish in picture are just 100% bluegill with fading or stressed out with no doubts. Whats big deal?

Physical reality.

Physical reality.

How about we hold this question open until the Texas convention, then have a NANFA Fish ID cage match! Butch and smbass vs. centrarchid and fundulus! I love it.

It appears to have the dorsal fin blotch typical of a bluegill.

I do not see the blotch in the dorsal fin in the photographs.

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Take a look here. The first time I saw this, I was using my desktop PC, and this blotch was obvious to me on that monitor. Looking at it on my laptop, it's not as obvious, but I can still see it. I think one's monitor and/or video card can affect how visible the blotch is, but unless there's some other explanation for this... the blotch is there.

If this fish had turned up in my net, it would have been back in the water quicker than I could say "it's just a washed out bluegill". That being said, far more knowledgeable people than I don't seem to agree. When they come to agreement, I'll go with their decision; until then, I'm going with washed out bluegill.