Green Sunfish Right?

[pelleeklund]

I put him in the tank as well. He's got a lot more orange on his belly and on his fins. Looks good at least, except for the tank shot, he's a little washed out since he just got dropped in. I know these guys hybridize with all sorts of other panfish so maybe he's just got a bit of something else in him. Or maybe it's a male female thing, any ideas?

 

[dcorreia]

Looks like a Green to me. Hard to tell from the picks if he has anything else in him. I have no idea about sex. I put a bunch of Greens in my pond and the only way I could tell the females from the males was the females out grew the males in size and weight about twice as fast as males if not faster.

 

[pelleeklund]

Damn. It is a green sunny too, it colored up in the tank again and it looks exactly like the other one I got just with more vibrant tones. I guess we will have to see if it's a sex issue. I wonder if their wild instincts would make them more prone to reproduction if that was the case.

 

[ShadowBass]

Blurry pics, but the mouth doesn't look big enough for a green, and with the bright red on the fins in the first pic I'm actually thinking possibly a longear. I'm not seeing a lot of greenie characteristics from those pics.

Can you get better pics with it settled in and colored up?

 

[ShadowBass]

I found the thread that had pics of your other sunfish. That other one is definitely 100% green sunfish, but he doesn't look like the one in the pics above at all, so I'm really interested in seeing updated pics.
A also notice that longear are endagered in PA, so I'm kind of hoping that I'm mistaken.

 

[ShadowBass]

I found the thread that had pics of your other sunfish. That other one is definitely 100% green sunfish, but he doesn't look like the one in the pics above at all, so I'm really interested in seeing updated pics.
A also notice that longear are endagered in PA, so I'm kind of hoping that I'm mistaken.

[Edit:]

Upon looking further, I'm seeing possibility of a redbreast too. I see a few regional variants that look similar to this one. And they're apparently more common in PA than longear.
But I don't have much experience with redbreasts as they're not often found in this region and I have no interest in keeping them.

So someone with more experience IDing them needs to post, along with better pics posted.

 

[pelleeklund]

Working on it my friend. I appreciate your diligence. It may in fact be a hybrid but Im pretty certain it's at least partially green sunfish. He's got those blue streaky lines in his face and is nearly identical to the other one I caught. On a side note the both of them did not get along at all. The more established greeny was relentlessly picking on the new one so I sent the old guy over to the 220. I will get picks as soon as I can though bud. Most likely when I get home tonight.

 

[ShadowBass]

I doubt it's a hybrid. Longear can have about the same type of green stripes on the face as green sunfish, and redbreasts to a lesser extent.
Unless it's a redbreastxlongear, and I don't think I could definitively ID one of those.

I've kept a ton of longear and I could still see it being one of those. The thing that makes me question that ID is that longear generally have color that extends completely around the gill spot, and yours stops at the end on both sides. Whereas redbreast commonly do not have color all the way around the gillspot.
But I've also seen longear where the gill spot looks exactly like yours (and the females often have a smaller, shorter spot).

But the gillspot being slightly elongated, pointing upward, and also the lack of other green sunfish traits (including the caudal and pectoral fins being shaped wrong - and the dorsal fin appears to be set too far back), still makes me think it's NOT a greenie.

 

[pelleeklund]

These pictures absolutely suck but hopefully they help some. The color looks much better in real life, unfortunately I can't get a decent picture with this p.o.s. camera on my phone.

 

[ShadowBass]

Well I can say that it's 100% positively NOT a green sunfish.

I'm thinking redbreast. As it grows you should know for sure. But the mouth is really big compared to a longear, and while some longears are that elongated most are not. Not to mention the rarity of longears in your region and the prevalence of redbreasts.

What is the exact waterway you caught it from?