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#21 zooxanthellae

zooxanthellae
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  • North Carolina

Posted 15 January 2015 - 10:55 PM

Very difficult to say for sure though. Sorta seems like the kind of fish Isaac would conjure up in photoshop to mess with us!


I was worried that would come up, but rest assured, this is a real fish! If you ever make it back down this way, we can take you there. :)

Both the first and the third look incredibly stunning. In all seriousness, I'd be happy to buy one (or a half dozen) if you could ship to PA.


Myself and another nanfa member, who never posts here, will be returning to the pond tomorrow, and taking a lot more photos. We will let you know what we find. I'm assuming those were breeding colors, so it will be interesting to see what they look like mid winter.

First fish would best be evaluated based on age as determined by otoliths.


This specimen was preserved in formalin, and we might be able to convince our ageing lab to take a look.

#22 butch

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Posted 15 January 2015 - 11:12 PM

The mouth on that hybrid is smaller than a pure green. The end of mouth doesn't past the eye.

#23 smbass

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Posted 15 January 2015 - 11:24 PM

Sorry I only get on here once a day most days so not sure if it will help but I will explain what I saw the best I can.

Lines on the face were too thick, Greens have thin blue lines and those of your fish were thicker. Greens do not typically have spotting on the fins this is a p-seed character. The pelvic fins have very long extensions on the tips, this is not something I have ever seen on a green but have seen on eastern dollars and blackspotted sunfish from the Carolinas. I admittedly have not seen many p-seeds on the east coast so maybe they have these long extensions there too. The pattern on the body is very random and blotchy and on a true green they typically have a horizontal arrangement of thin blue lines along with darker vertical bars giving them a less random and more organized appearance of their markings. I also feel the tip of the opercle had just a hint of redish color which would be a p-seed character. I see all of this instantly but I don't always do the best at explaining it to others. I think I would conclude this fish is a hybrid between a green sunfish and a pumpkinseed most likely or maybe a dollar sunfish. Only thing that really makes me think dollar is those long fin extensions so that is certainly the second guess well behind the first one. I ruled out longear because they are not found on the east coast and redbreast when you said pond. Redbreast are more of a stream and river species or sometimes large reservoirs or lakes. Bluegill don't have the many small spots in the fins and neither do greens so that most common hybrid of Bluegill x Green does not make sense in this case.Attached File  crazy green.png   715.08KB   2 downloads
Brian I took the liberty of adding the photo right here so we could all easily see what you are describing. Matt

Brian J. Zimmerman

Gambier, Ohio - Kokosing River Drainage


#24 Isaac Szabo

Isaac Szabo
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  • Marble Falls, AR

Posted 15 January 2015 - 11:37 PM

Sorta seems like the kind of fish Isaac would conjure up in photoshop to mess with us!


Ha! Good idea Derek. Here's an animation showing Uland's 'typical' green sunfish being stretched to the body shape of the fish in question:

Posted Image

In addition to Brian's excellent points, the caudal fin doesn't seem right for green (not rounded enough).

#25 Matt DeLaVega

Matt DeLaVega
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  • Ohio

Posted 15 January 2015 - 11:43 PM

What kind of witchcraft is that Isaac? I shall see you burn in the land of the sooners!

Thanks you Brian for your detailed and always helpful insight.

The member formerly known as Skipjack


#26 gzeiger

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Posted 15 January 2015 - 11:58 PM

Green sunfish look like this:


Posted Image

#27 centrarchid

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Posted 16 January 2015 - 07:40 AM

Ha! Good idea Derek. Here's an animation showing Uland's 'typical' green sunfish being stretched to the body shape of the fish in question:

Posted Image

In addition to Brian's excellent points, the caudal fin doesn't seem right for green (not rounded enough).



Where the stretching impacts the ratio of dorsal spines relative to body length / anterior depth is where you get into a realm that does not agree with green sunfish I have seen from anywhere once they are more than about 2" long. Mouth can vary by diet alone but those spines are much more reliable.

If easy, then I suggest morphing a pure green into a pure pumkinseed. The intermediate will be closer still to fish in question.
Find ways for people not already interested in natives to value them.

#28 centrarchid

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Posted 16 January 2015 - 07:44 AM

Matt, the closer approach to the green phenotype can come from two sources. First, the fish can be a back cross to the green side. Second, many characters do not fall out as averages between two species going into the hybrid. With some characters like I noted with bluegill above, one parent dominates the not unlike you have with classic dominant and recessive alleles.
Find ways for people not already interested in natives to value them.

#29 Sean Phillips

Sean Phillips
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  • Allegheny River Drainage, Southwest PA

Posted 16 January 2015 - 07:49 AM

Good point about megalotis not being on the east coast, I forgot about that. Based on the tall spines and the red blotch on the operculum, I'm going to conclude with Brian that this is a Green X Pumpkinseed. I can't see any marginatus in there since neither dollars or greens have the red on their operculum, unless a cyanellus X gibbosus hybridized further with a marginatus.
Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

#30 centrarchid

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Posted 16 January 2015 - 09:57 AM

Sometimes the reddish look of operculum can pop out even though neither parent has it for hybrids. This particular true when hybrid is not first generation.
Find ways for people not already interested in natives to value them.

#31 Sean Phillips

Sean Phillips
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Posted 16 January 2015 - 06:23 PM

Myself and another nanfa member, who never posts here, will be returning to the pond tomorrow, and taking a lot more photos. We will let you know what we find. I'm assuming those were breeding colors, so it will be interesting to see what they look like mid winter.


How did it go today, any luck?
Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

#32 zooxanthellae

zooxanthellae
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Posted 16 January 2015 - 11:20 PM

How did it go today, any luck?

Unfortunately we did not catch any today. It is a small pond, and they did not go anywhere, it is just too cold, and they weren't biting. We had our seines with us, I think we were just too chicken to get in the cold water ourselves. I did however find a picture of another specimen that we caught back in October. It isn't quite as colorful, but it is still a good looking fish:
Attached File  20141009_120830.jpg   148.07KB   0 downloads

This one was released back into the pond soon after capture. So I guess we will have to leave it here until the water warms up, or we grow a pair and seine that pond!
A big thank you to everyone for helping ID this fish!

Today was still an interesting day though, a bit of freezing rain killed off a fair number of fishes in a separate pond a few miles away. This second pond is really interesting for a number of reasons, mainly it is a freshwater retention pond with overflows that lead into full seawater. A few of you guys reading this have been there with me in the past. We found a fair number of adult spinycheek sleepers, and a river goby, Awaous banana, among the casualties. This is the second banana we have pulled from this pond in 6 months, and is the third river goby known from North Carolina. We found fish number 2, and Fritz found fish number one sometime in the '90s. It is a really uncommon fish in the US.

Attached File  20150116_142026.jpg   153.74KB   0 downloads
River Goby

Attached File  20150116_144749.jpg   106.01KB   0 downloads
Spinycheek sleeper

#33 gerald

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  • Wake Forest, North Carolina

Posted 19 January 2015 - 04:00 PM

Green sunfish in a stormwater detention pond in that area are most likely stocked fish, and those sure do look like a selectively-bred strain. NC-DWQ has no stream records of greens between New Bern, Jacksonville, and Morehead City. Nearest sites are several miles NW of New Bern, closer to Grifton. Maybe you can find out from the owner or property manager who stocked it, if it wasn't too many years ago, and check with the source as to what the fishes' pedigree is. I agree they look different from "run-of-the-mill" feral greens that I see all over Piedmont NC.

I hope the lyre gobies survived the freeze better than the river goby and spinycheek. The little guy you gave me in Nov is still doing great - just needs some friends.

Gerald Pottern
-----------------------
Hangin' on the Neuse
"Taxonomy is the diaper used to organize the mess of evolution into discrete packages" - M.Sandel





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