To my knowledge, there is no record of Bantam sunfish hybridizing with other lepomis species. Bantam sunfish may be closely related to Enneacanthus genus (Bluespotted, Blackbanded and Banded Sunfish). Remember I say may, not 100% sure. But to be honest, I do not think Bantam sunfish are that colorful and isn't worth to use Bantam in your hybridization project.
When I first heard about the species (from my boss) I assumed based on size that they were from the same genus. They are not. We will see, its an idea on the table. They have a fairly neutral color, and so should (in my mind) take other fishes color fairly well, and also help to small them down a bit.
As for Warmouth, they are "distinct" genetically from other lepomis and in the past the warmouth placed Chaenobryttus genus as sole member...today Warmouth are placed in Lepomis group. Ive heard some Lepomis species cross with other Lepomis do produce sterile hybrids (can't remember which species).
Interesting...again...its on the table, and this is a species that would be fairly easy for me to get. (Just as a note here, all fish for this project are going to be PURCHASED...no wild capture. Covering my butt now so that there is no confusion.) We will just have to see if I breed them and try to breed offspring I guess.
But Warmouth hybrids are that colorful. Somewhere I remember that if you use redbreast sunfish cross to longear sunfish, you produced "eartheater" sunfish, looks like an eartheater cichlid.
By eartheater, I assume that you are referring to geophagus(S) genus(S)? Interesting group of fish...I wonder what they meant though, there are a lot of different appearances among the group.
