Javascript Disabled Detected

You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

Brain Teaser Sunfish

Started by Guest_itsme_* , Aug 19 2008 01:29 AM

Next

Please log in to reply

32 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_itsme_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 01:29 AM

Here's a brain teaser for ya. This fish was collected in the Olentangy River north of Delaware Ohio in Delaware County. What do y'all think? Hold your tongue for a bit, Brian Z, I want to hear what others think. Have fun with this one. There are three pics, just because that's what I have:

smallP1030791.jpg 35.46KB 2 downloads

smallP1030792.jpg 40.37KB 2 downloads

smallP1030793.jpg 39.95KB 2 downloads

Back to top

#2 Guest_centrarchid_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 06:55 AM

I do not think any hybrids I have made. Eyes small suggesting rapid growth during much of life. Overall coloration suggestive of pumpkinseed although blanched. Ear tab margin and stripes demarking upper and lower edges like western dollar, some longears, and orange spotted sunfish. Head shape elongate and mouth relatively large is evidence against bluegill and redear. Not a warmouth hybrid and too deep with dorsal spines to tall to be a green sunfish hybrid. I wish I could see the lateral line system better. I think [orange spotted x pumpkinseed]. Some body been squeezing them to please them? If not a hybrid pumpkinseed, then pumpkinseeds that have beens feeding on large prey items with resulting phenotypic plasticity involved.

Edited by centrarchid, 19 August 2008 - 06:57 AM.

Back to top

#3 Guest_fundulus_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 07:33 AM

I would say sub-adult longear.

Back to top

#4 Guest_natureman187_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 08:23 AM

Nice fish Mark. I caught one just like it years ago in a clear running stream. The stream had a few redear and orangespots in it so I assumed that's what it was. Your fish looks like mine though yours does seem a bit more pumkinseedish. I would be interested to see what the rest of the pro hybrid guys have to say about yours.

Attached Files

MysteryFish3.JPG 33.3KB 1 downloads

Edited by natureman187, 19 August 2008 - 08:29 AM.

Back to top

#5 Guest_dsmith73_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 09:20 AM

I am going to second Centrarchid(as if he needs it) and suggest p-seed x o-spot.

Back to top

#6 Guest_blakemarkwell_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 09:48 AM

I agree, L. gibbosus x L. humilis

Back to top

#7 Guest_teleost_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 10:21 AM

All this fancy hybrid talk....It's obviously a stumpknocker :tongue:

Mark, did many or other fish at this sampling site have a bit of red in the white margin in the opercle flap? If not, I'd tend to call it an OSS with a bit of odd opercle coloration.

Back to top

#8 Guest_fundulus_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 10:22 AM

So Mark, if this fish is indeed considered by many to be a hybrid, how do we know what it is? You have knowledge of stocking, or is this received wisdom on someone's part? My ongoing skepticism is that we're interpreting naturally occuring variation as evidence of recent hybridization.

Back to top

#9 Guest_farmertodd_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 11:00 AM

My vote is humilus x gibbosus as well, based on the red spot in the white rimmed operculum, the slope of the head, the chaining pattern from the gill plate forward and the evenly spaced orange spots down the body.

My ongoing skepticism is that we're interpreting naturally occuring variation as evidence of recent hybridization.

Or... anthropogenic range expansion / contraction via increased turbidity. What kind of naturally occuring variation would that be, since there's now definitive "orangespot" with gross abundances all over the Scioto watershed, with enormous reductions in definitive "pumpkinseed" abundances these days? Is it a variant pumpkinseed?

Why is hard to believe that a fish that maintains both parental characteristics is a true hybrid? There is an entire literature on introgression and hybridization related to disturbance.

Vermillion darter? Yeah, I'll join your skepticism that it's anything more than localized variation.

But these are massively disturbed systems with more tolerant sympatrics coming into the picture, in lotic systems, with clustered spawning and sneaker males, squirtin' gametes all over the damn place.

Having strange phenotypes suddenly appear doesn't seem like it'd be related to the probabilities of rare gene expression, now would it? Sure, there's a new selection pressure... but that's not what's found in the lit.

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 19 August 2008 - 11:00 AM.

Back to top

#10 Guest_midge_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 11:36 AM

definantly has some orangespot in it, I would have to second the xpumkinseed, what about a redearxorangespot, i know redears are more common around there.

Back to top

#11 Guest_fundulus_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 12:24 PM

Bouncing off of what Todd said, maybe phenotypes change in massively altered stream systems with heightened turbidity and different nutrient status. Or, do all reproductive barriers break down and previously existing species become meaningless? That's the apocalyptic thought, maybe it's true. Or it's a parlor game of mixing and matching possible parents, jus' for fun.

Back to top

#12 Guest_farmertodd_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 01:06 PM

Bouncing off of what Todd said, maybe phenotypes change in massively altered stream systems with heightened turbidity and different nutrient status. Or, do all reproductive barriers break down and previously existing species become meaningless? That's the apocalyptic thought, maybe it's true. Or it's a parlor game of mixing and matching possible parents, jus' for fun.

Well, I think that's what Centrarchid is doing (the parlor game).

What I'm getting at is that hybridization is well documented, changing phenotype is not (at least in the fish lit). And until someone shows me patterned phenotypic response to distrubance while ruling out hybridization, I gotta go with what is in the evidence.

Todd

Back to top

#13 Guest_centrarchid_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 01:52 PM

Well, I think that's what Centrarchid is doing (the parlor game).

What I'm getting at is that hybridization is well documented, changing phenotype is not (at least in the fish lit). And until someone shows me patterned phenotypic response to distrubance while ruling out hybridization, I gotta go with what is in the evidence.

Todd

A few papers documenting phenotypic plasticity are out there.
Examples:
Green sunfish
Northern bluegill
Orange spotted sunfish
Florida (largemeouth) bass

Also while working with northern largemouth bass for dissertation, I think my pellet reared subjects had smaller head and jaws than full siblings reared on fathead minnows. Coloration clearly affected.

I still think fish photographed is more likely a hybrid.

Back to top

#14 Guest_farmertodd_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 03:19 PM

So... All the invaders. Not the "invadees". Even more interesting.

Todd

Back to top

#15 Guest_centrarchid_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 05:26 PM

I would be taken off if most if not all centrarchids, and maybe fish in general, can exhibit some level of phenotypic plasticity. Our long-term classroom project with pumpkinseed and redear in the same body of water, without bluegill filling the zooplankton specialty niche, may be an indirect way to see if pumpkinseed can shift away from competitive interactions with redear.

Back to top

#16 Guest_fundulus_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 08:36 PM

Character displacement is a well-documented phenomenon when a species shares an environment with one or another closely related species. I know there's a large literature about it with birds (e.g., Darwin's finches in the Galapagos) and some work was done with Lepomis sunfishes by Gary Mittelbach and others in Michigan in the 70s and 80s showing shifts in feeding preferences in different situations.

Back to top

#17 Guest_itsme_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 09:27 PM

Here's some of the other fishes caught that day:

smallP1030775.jpg 19.71KB 1 downloads

smallP1030782.jpg 27.74KB 2 downloads

smallP1030798.jpg 25.51KB 1 downloads

smallP1030810.jpg 31.46KB 1 downloads

smallP1030827.jpg 26.25KB 1 downloads

smallP1030837.jpg 22.82KB 1 downloads

A couple of habitat shots:

Upstream:

smallP1030778.jpg 53.53KB 0 downloads

Downstream:

smallP1030776.jpg 72.52KB 0 downloads

Attached Files

smallP1030791.jpg 35.46KB 0 downloads
smallP1030792.jpg 40.37KB 0 downloads
smallP1030793.jpg 39.95KB 0 downloads

Back to top

#18 Guest_smbass_*

Guests

Posted 19 August 2008 - 09:42 PM

I saw this fish in person and so I think that is why Mark said to hold off my comments at first. I agree that it is a pumpkinseend x o-spot. There are plenty of OSS in the Olentangy River and there is a relatively large reservoir just upstream of where these fish were taken that has a large pumpkinseed population. It makes perfect sence that in the tailwater stretch you would get a hybrid of the two. The river is also not exactly pristeine and is the type of situation that you often see many hybrids, it flows through Columbus Ohio. Based on the coloration I don't see how it could be anything else. Also the last fish piucture before the habitat shots is also a hybrid, looks like a blugill x green sunfish. I think Mark had one of these in the tank with the first fish being discussed as well, not sure if it is the same fish as pictured though.

Back to top

#19 Guest_dsmith73_*

Guests

Posted 20 August 2008 - 07:56 AM

I'll buy the greengill on the bottom fish, but there were no shots of greens being taken. Were they and just not photographed?

Back to top

#20 Guest_centrarchid_*

Guests

Posted 20 August 2008 - 08:02 AM

Also the last fish piucture before the habitat shots is also a hybrid, looks like a blugill x green sunfish. I think Mark had one of these in the tank with the first fish being discussed as well, not sure if it is the same fish as pictured though.

I think the last fish is a bluegill x orange spotted, x green. I have them before and wonder why the sometimes so common. Have seen them in Fabius river system multiple times.