Golden shiner
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| iGolden shiner | ||||||||||||||
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| Notemigonus crysoleucas (Mitchill, 1814) |
The golden shiner, Notemigonus crysoleucas, is a cyprinid fish native to eastern North America and introduced throughout the continent. It is the sole member of its genus.
The golden shiner's back is a green to olive shade, and the belly a silvery white, but its golden or silvery sides are what gets noticed. There may be a faint dusky stripe along the sides as well, and the lateral line has a pronounced downward curve, with its lowest point just above the pelvic fins. The prominent anal fin is indented in the middle and has 11-15 rays, while the dorsal fin has 8 rays. It is known to reach a length of 30 cm.
Golden shiners primarily feed on zooplankton; a study at Clear Lake in California showed zooplankton as 95% of the diet. They may also eat insects, or filamentous algae if little else is available. They are themselves food for all manner of game fish, such as trout or bass.
They prefer quiet waters, rarely being found in streams that have a detectable current, but may be found in a wide variety of habitats meeting the one requirement, from ditches and sloughs to ponds and large lakes. They do better in clear water with dense mats of vegetation, but can deal with pollution, turbidity, and low oxygen content.
It is much used as a bait fish, possibly the most widely cultivated in North America; it grows to any desired size rapidly.
[edit] References
- Notemigonus crysoleucas (TSN 163368). Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Accessed on 18 April 2006.
- William F. Sigler and John W. Sigler, Fishes of the Great Basin (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1987), pp. 188-191
- "Notemigonus crysoleucas". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. April 2006 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2006.
