Spotted this poor thing gasping at the surface in someone's bait bucket. When I saw the fin colors and the nodules on the head, I thought it was a chub, so I asked if I could have it. Upon getting him into clean water and giving him a few minutes to catch his breath (poor boy was in with about 15 suffocated shiners), I noticed that his general shape was a bit wrong for a chub, and he had a tail-spot like on blacktail shiners.
I've never heard of a blacktail shiner being this colorful, even in breeding dress. Could this be a hybrid of some sort? I know we have blacktail shiners, but I'm not sure if we have another species. I'm in Central Texas, and this guy was found in the San Gabriel river, if that helps.
At some point, I'm gonna set up a shiner/darter tank. When I do, I want some of whatever these are. I ended up having to let this one go, though, he was still breathing fast and I know larger shiners don't adapt well to aquarium life. Don't worry, I didn't put him in new water, the bucket's owner had caught this with a cast-net right upstream from where I released him- though I made sure to put him somewhere with water a bit too fast for anyone to catch the poor guy again.
Edited by Betta132, 17 July 2015 - 01:18 PM.