What did I catch?
- Thread starter Tai95
- Start date
Looks like a collection of:
mottled sculpin
fantail darter
blacknose dace
Nice collection there. You keeping them in a native tank?
mottled sculpin
fantail darter
blacknose dace
Nice collection there. You keeping them in a native tank?
ewurm said:
A lot of darters only show color in the males and even more color when they are breeding. Also, a lot of colors are washed out when they are being photgraphed out of their waters. I was looking in the field guide and saw there are only a few darters that are in the buffalo region. The closest that the pic represents is the fantail. I may be wrong, I'm no expert when it comes to ID'ng fish.
The fish in the first two pics is a sculpin but I'm not sure what kind. The other pics are definitely darters but again, I'm not sure what kind. Where these were collected would help.
Chip in SC
Chip in SC
Thanks for help ID'ing these guys. I wasn't planning on catching any fish, My main goal was to catch a few crayfish. I was actually surprised to even see fish in the creek. When I was growing up the water was super polluted. There was a powdered milk processing plant that would dump it's waste water into it. Also most of the houses along the creek had there sewage drain into it. Pretty nasty stuff. I can remember days when the water was almost completely white and the smell was so bad you couldn't open windows. It's nice to see that it is recovering.
I released them after I took the pictures. I may set up a tank for them though they seem pretty interesting.
I collected them in Clear creek in southern Erie county.
drewish said:
I released them after I took the pictures. I may set up a tank for them though they seem pretty interesting.
ksiaquatics said:
I collected them in Clear creek in southern Erie county.
Looks to me like...
Mottled sculpin
There are only three sculpin species that live in New York. The spoonhead, mottled and slimy. The spoonhead is thought extinct in most of it's NY range and has not been found in lake Erie since 1950. The mottled sculpin is very common around where you live.
Tesselated or possably Johnny darter
Hard to tell with the blury pictrues but they are both very similer. Look at the anal spine, these two darters will only have one spine on the anal fin where as other darters will have two. To narrow it down further the Johnny darter has a more blunt nose, I think it's a tesselated.
Blacknose Dace
Pretty easy to ID and very common, everyone pretty much already knew what it was.
Mottled sculpin
There are only three sculpin species that live in New York. The spoonhead, mottled and slimy. The spoonhead is thought extinct in most of it's NY range and has not been found in lake Erie since 1950. The mottled sculpin is very common around where you live.
Tesselated or possably Johnny darter
Hard to tell with the blury pictrues but they are both very similer. Look at the anal spine, these two darters will only have one spine on the anal fin where as other darters will have two. To narrow it down further the Johnny darter has a more blunt nose, I think it's a tesselated.
Blacknose Dace
Pretty easy to ID and very common, everyone pretty much already knew what it was.
