Blue sucker
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| Cycleptus elongatus Lesueur, 1817 |
The blue sucker, Cycleptus elongatus, is a freshwater species of fish in the sucker family. Huge migrations of these fast, powerful fish once migrated throughout the Mississippi River basin, and spring harvests of blue sucker were a staple food for early pioneers. Blue suckers are quite rare today, mainly due to the segmentation of habitat caused by the thousands of dams that have been built in the last century. Blues frequent the thalweg of large river systems, in heavy current. Early records indicate that this fish once reached weights of over 40 lb, although 15-pounders are quite rare today.
Blue suckers eat aquatic insect larvae, crustaceans, plant materials and algae.
[edit] References
- Gimenez Dixon (1996). Cycleptus elongatus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006.
- "Cycleptus elongatus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. November 2005 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2005.
- NatureServe - Cycleptus elongatus
- Fishes of Minnesota - Blue sucker
- roughfish.com - Blue sucker
