Shadow bass
- Thread starter Bradyfam
- Start date
I never heard of "Shadow Bass" until these threads started cropping up here. A bit of googling seems to indicate that they are pretty much indistinguishable from nicely-marked specimens of Rock Bass, which have a much broader range and are pretty common. If you have them in your area, have you considered them for your tank?
Common fish are every bit as colourful and interesting as the ones that are hard to get...and in this case they are practically identical to them. Why turn this into a quest for something you probably won't find, and likely won't be able to tell the difference if you do find them?
Common fish are every bit as colourful and interesting as the ones that are hard to get...and in this case they are practically identical to them. Why turn this into a quest for something you probably won't find, and likely won't be able to tell the difference if you do find them?
Go on craigslist or something. Say if you can ship me a shadow bass i will pay you x amount of money. If someone offers, describe the shipping conditions needed to keep it alive. Probably going to have to be at least $50. The more you offer, the faster you will get the fish.
Shadow Bass and Rock Bass are so similar in appearance that for every legitimate Shadow you get this way...I'd bet you have a dozen or so Rock Bass. Yes, the pics usually show the Shadow as being much more mottled and splotchy while the Rock is a clean greenish...but there is a vast array of markings to be seen on Rock Bass, which can change their appearance very quickly based on mood, etc. I have caught plenty of Rock Bass that, at least some of the time, looked like dead ringers for what I now see ID'd as Shadows...and I was nowhere near the range of the Shadow Bass.
The Ambloplites genus probably doesn't get nearly the attention that most cichlid genera do from taxonomists. Cichlid genera have proliferated hugely over the past few decades, thanks to the "splitters", who sometimes behave as though each individual fish is a species unto itself. Someday the "lumpers" may come back into vogue and re-integrate them all back together again; the divisions and subdivisions are, let's face it, pretty arbitrary. DNA shows what is related to what and how closely, but taxonomists wanting to get published are the ones who decide whether or not it's a separate species, or just a subspecies, or even a new genus. This happens all the time with birds, no reason it couldn't happen with fish.
So, even if you get some faceless internet seller to send you a couple fish that really are honest-to-goodness Shadow Bass...or at least are considered so today...you might find a year or two later that they have magically been transported back into the rupestris species and are just a regional variation of the same dusty old Rock Bass found across the country. You might feel a little bit silly...but the fish will still look the same in your tank as they always did. They don't care what we call them.
And...fifty bucks for a Rock Bass? Wow.
No one as far as i know breeds shadow bass, that means the only way to get one is to catch one. Unless you want to go to where they live and catch them yourself you will need someone to do it for you. That means they need to go out and catch one, send you pictures to make sure it is what you are looking for, purchase the supplies to make sure they can survive shipment and then pay whatever the cost is to actually ship to you. $50 is probably the lowest you could get one at, especially given the fact that their range is rather limited compared to most game fish in the United States. Of course with the economy of scale you could probably get multiple ones for ~$100 total.
