RE: NANFA-L-- sunfish ID

Benjamin Keck (fishcentre99-in-hotmail.com)
Fri, 26 May 2006 09:36:24 -0400

I'd agree that it's a longear, Lepomis megalotis. The L. auritus record
listed in Ross' book is based on a misidentification and was actually a lot
of L. megalotis, redetermined Keck & Etnier 2003. The main candidates for
your fish are L. marginatus, dollar sunfish, and L. megalotis, longear
sunfish. Adults are fairly easy to differentiate based on: 1. opercular
flap, the ear -- in the dollar there is silver flecking that extends all the
way into the ear, in the longear it fades out near the origin/front of the
ear like in your specimen. 2. point of maximum body depth -- when you look
at the dollar the point-in-which it is deepest will be before the origin of
the dorsal fin, so the fish looks kind of front heavy, while in the longear
the deepest point is under the dorsal fin, so the fish looks more evenly
distributed or oblong. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it appears
that both characters point to a longear. And they are a very cool fish.

Have a good day,

Ben Keck

upper TN

>From: "Harry Thames" <thames_h-in-msn.com>
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
>Subject: NANFA-L-- sunfish ID
>Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 16:42:32 -0500
>
>I caught this Sunday on the Escatawba river in south Mississippi. This was
>1 of the 3 males that I caught, I caught approximately 16 or so along a 100
>ft sand bar. Most were 2.5" - 3". I have kept a few of these in years
>past, I had thought that these fish were Longear sunfish but some people
>have told me that they think it is a hybrid, specificly a longear -
>redbreast combo . I have caught hybrids before (green and red-ear cross,
>ect.ect.) but I have never caught a whole bunch of them and never for
>several years, (although I do catch them in the exact same place)
>
>
>
>
>
>I will be setting up a 125 gal native tank-in-my place of business and I
>will stock the tank with 4-5 of these and a large school of sail-fin
>shiners. I would like to have the fish properly Identified so I can print
>up a booklet for children in the waiting room, a sudo-educational thing
>(better and cheaper than cable in the long run)
>
>
>
>thanks
>
>
>
>here is a link to where I have hosted the pict on the web
>
>
>
>http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c162/hmt321/sunnie.jpg
>
>
>
>it is also on as an attachment
>
>[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/jpeg which had a name of
>image001.jpg]
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