need ID confirmation on several natives

hey guys. i find it much easier to identify the exotics, and when it comes to natives I tend to be lost.
I have some fish that I think have been identified, either here, on other forums, or through online searching, correctly.
but I would like confirmation if possible.

all fish collected in south florida in either Broward or Dade counties.


1. Fundulus confluentus


2. Lepomis marginatus


3. Centrarchus macropterus


4. Bagre marinus



this one to me sounds like a very obscure ID, but i've been told insistently that it's correct on another forum?
5. Gambusia rhizophorae



6. Micropterus salmoides floridanus



7. Erimyzon sucetta



8. scientific name unknown - juvenile bass



thanks for all the help with the ones you can confirm!

Edited by trojannemo, 03 December 2009 - 01:22 AM.

this one to me sounds like a very obscure ID, but i've been told insistently that it's correct on another forum?
5. Gambusia rhizophorae

Sure looks like sailfin molly to me.

I can understand why someone would suggest mangrove mosquitofish with the lateral rows of dots. But the species is pretty much only found in red mangrove stands in Florida. Also, the fish in the picture has much more fin color than would be found in the gambusia.

thanks for the help with that one. i always felt it was just a colorful variety of the sailfin molly...but since an older club member kept insisting, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt until confirmed or overturned here.

now on to the other 7! any idea on those?

Fundulus does look like confluentus, but if you caught it in fresh water far from any brackish marsh then you might also consider seminolis.

catfish - looks like spotted or brown bullhead.

dollar, flier, mollie, LMbass, chubsucker -- I agree.

The sunfishes appear to be redbreast and the odd warmouth of southern Florida.

I second the warmouth, but I didn't think Redbreast ocurred as far south as Dade or Broward counties. The Catfish looks like a bullhead, not a gafftop Catfish.

1. F. confluentus, F. seminolis is a studfish and has a studfish shape even at a small size. It also doesn't have the mottling on the body or the dorsal spot that is barely apparent on the fish in question.
2. L. marginatus
3. This one is difficult, but I believe it is C. macropterus based on the bluish blush on the side and the hint of an occellus on the rear of the dorsal.
4. A. nebulosus, definitely not the saltwater cat listed and it is in the wrong drainage to be a spotted bullhead. Browns are very common down that way.
5. Definitely a P. latipinna. It is highly spotted, but the coloration is variable. Certainly not a Gambusia sp.
6. Bass, I am not good with bass.
7. E. sucetta, It's the only option since E. oblongus doesn't range down that far
8. Juvie bass

1. F. confluentus
2. Most likely L. marginatus
3. That is not a Centrarchus macropterus. (If you ever find out what it is, let me know.)
Here's what a flier looks like: http://www.epa.gov/b..._sunfishes.html
4. Hard to tell, but I've already guessed juvenile gafftopsail catfish.
5. Poecilia latipinia. Here's a male G. rhizophorae
http://faculty-staff...izophorae-m.jpg
6. Largemouth bass
7. Probably E. sucetta. I've never seen one. We have Creek chubsuckers here, and the juveniles have the black lateral band, just like this fish does
8. Probably a largemouth bass.

Hi Dustin. Look at the catfish again. The eye is too large and the mouth too narrow for a bullhead. You're right that it's not a spotted bullhead. I've got two of those, and that definitey isn't one. I don't know what a juvenile gafftopsail looks like, but they do venture into freshwater, so I think gafftopsail is a likely candidate.

1. F. confluentus, F. seminolis is a studfish and has a studfish shape even at a small size. It also doesn't have the mottling on the body or the dorsal spot that is barely apparent on the fish in question.
2. L. marginatus
3. This one is difficult, but I believe it is C. macropterus based on the bluish blush on the side and the hint of an occellus on the rear of the dorsal.
4. A. nebulosus, definitely not the saltwater cat listed and it is in the wrong drainage to be a spotted bullhead. Browns are very common down that way.
5. Definitely a P. latipinna. It is highly spotted, but the coloration is variable. Certainly not a Gambusia sp.
6. Bass, I am not good with bass.
7. E. sucetta, It's the only option since E. oblongus doesn't range down that far
8. Juvie bass

THere are a few characters that essentially eliminate the gafftopsail. It is essentially a silvery fish, rarely showing any mottling or pattern. It also has a very strongly forked caudal and the fish in question has either a blunt or very slightly forked caudal. While I agree that the gafftopsail would be a possibility in the area, I don't think this is it. I think the eye size issue is just an artifact of the photo where some things are disproportionate due to the angle of the shot.

My screen distorts the images quite allot but even when I compress the length, the second sunfish shown as a flier can not be such. Anal fin not deep enough and has too few anal spines. I am not familiar with the dollar sunfish down there but they do look very elongate relative to what I work with so I am not confident about what it is.

Hi Dustin. Look at the catfish again. The eye is too large and the mouth too narrow for a bullhead. You're right that it's not a spotted bullhead. I've got two of those, and that definitey isn't one. I don't know what a juvenile gafftopsail looks like, but they do venture into freshwater, so I think gafftopsail is a likely candidate.

Gafftopsail cats have deep forktails. It is a bullhead Looks much like every bullhead I've caught in Fl.

Centrarchid is right; this sunfish does NOT have the 7 or 8 anal fin spines of a flier. So I change my vote to warmouth, but that flier-like green color is weird to me. Warmouth in the Carolinas have a blue-violet sheen, not green. Young dollars and redbreast can look pretty similar, but the light opercular edge and blue face/body patterning looks more like dollar. Was he caught in flowing or non-flowing waters? Dollars will live in both still and flowing habitat, but redbreast are almost always in or near flowing waters up here. (Dunno if that applies in FL).

My screen distorts the images quite allot but even when I compress the length, the second sunfish shown as a flier can not be such. Anal fin not deep enough and has too few anal spines. I am not familiar with the dollar sunfish down there but they do look very elongate relative to what I work with so I am not confident about what it is.

Centrarchid is right; this sunfish does NOT have the 7 or 8 anal fin spines of a flier. So I change my vote to warmouth, but that flier-like green color is weird to me. Warmouth in the Carolinas have a blue-violet sheen, not green. Young dollars and redbreast can look pretty similar, but the light opercular edge and blue face/body patterning looks more like dollar. Was he caught in flowing or non-flowing waters? Dollars will live in both still and flowing habitat, but redbreast are almost always in or near flowing waters up here. (Dunno if that applies in FL).

Gerald,

The warmouth occuring in southern Florida is quite different from those of the midwest and middle Atlantic seaboard. I would not be surprised if differences are at the species level.

I certainly buy warmouth as well based on the eye and mouth size.

thank you all for the help with the fish IDs. i had no internet service for the past 4 days so couldn't get on.

based on the information given and further research using the suggested IDs i've concluded that the fish are:

1)Fundulus confluentus
2)Lepomis marginatus
4)Ameiurus nebulosus - since this one sparked discussion: using the brown bullhead name found a university of florida page with information on the fish and their pictures were identical to the fish I caught. i'm satisfied with this ID now!
5)Poecilia latipinna
6)Micropterus salmoides floridanus
7)Erimyzon sucetta
8)Micropterus salmoides floridanus

only one i'm not convinced (since there is so much disagreement over it) is the 3rd picture - the supposed flier. i guess thats not a good enough image for ID!

it looks as if my IDs were mostly correct

It is not a flier mouth is way to big and does not have a deep enough body. It is a warmouth, Lepomis gulosus. I agree with your revised conclusions on the rest after everyone's suggestions.

well i never thought of it as a warmouth due to the weird coloration. these are the warmouth i catch regularly:




that little guy didnt look like that to me. but perhaps it was due to its small size?

There really is nothing else that fits for that photo and your location. Coloration of such a small fish will be a little different than the larger ones you posted. It is not a flier, here is a photo of a small flier...  jv Flier Suwanee River FL 01OCT09 by BZ.jpg   192.54KB   0 downloads