The Fishes of North Carolina
By the NCFishes.com Team The Family Eleotridae is a small family of just three species inhabiting North Carolina’s shallow coastal waters. These species, unknown to most, are: Fat Sleeper, Dormitator maculatus, Largescaled Spinycheek Sleeper, Eleotris amblyopsis, and Emerald Sleeper, Erotelis smaragdus (NCFishes.com; Tracy et al. 2020). [Please note: Tracy et al. (2020) may be downloaded … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team North Carolina is home to 3 of the 6 species of Temperate Basses, plus one hybrid (Table 1) (Tracy et al. 2020). [Please note: Tracy et al. (2020) may be downloaded for free at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/sfcproceedings/vol1/iss60/1.] The 4th North American species of Morone, M. mississippiensis, Yellow Bass, is found primarily in the … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team (Written by Bryn. H. Tracy) This blog post is an update to Scott A. Smith’s original blog posting on Shad Identification, dated June 16, 2015. All links to the original post now redirect here. I grew up with this children’s poem, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod”, written by Eugene Field (1850-1895, published … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team North Carolina is home to three species of sculpins: Mottled Sculpin, Cottus bairdii, Blue Ridge Sculpin, Cottus caeruleomentum, and Banded Sculpin, Cottus carolinae (Tracy et al. 2020). [Please note: Tracy et al. (2020) may be downloaded for free at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/sfcproceedings/vol1/iss60/1.] Sculpins, to the lay-person, are often called molly crawlbottom, miller’s thumb … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team The Topminnow Family in North Carolina is a small family of 11 scientifically described and 1 undescribed species (Table 1) occurring primarily within the eastern Coastal Plain and within the estuarine marshes along the Atlantic Coast (Menhinick 1991; Tracy et al. 2020). [Please note: Tracy et al. (2020) may be downloaded … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team In North Carolina, lampreys constitute a small family of very evolutionary primitive fishes. Most people, including fishermen, are not aware of their existence, unless one is fortunate enough to observe a spawning aggregation in the riffles of a clear Mountain or Coastal Plain stream during the late Winter or early Spring … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team North Carolina is home to 3 of the 4 species of Esox known to occur in North America: Redfin Pickerel, Esox americanus, Chain Pickerel, E. niger, and Muskellunge, E. masquinongy (Tracy et al. 2020). [Please note: Tracy et al. (2020) may be downloaded for free at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/sfcproceedings/vol1/iss60/1.] There are two subspecies … Read more
“Minnow” Species (Families Cyprinidae, Xenocyprididae, and Leuciscidae) Diversity in North Carolina By the NCFishes.com Team Next to our native darters (Family Percidae), our native species of minnows rival the brightly colored tropical fishes one would find in your local or big-box pet store, yet few people are aware of their existence. You might have heard … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team There are 23 species of sunfishes in North Carolina (Table 1), including one undescribed species, “Bartram’s” Bass and one species, Redeye Bass, found in only the Hiwassee River basin (Tracy et al. 2020). You might have heard people calling them Stumpknocker, Bream, Goggleye, Robin, Perch, Shellcracker, Bronzeback, Kentucky Bass, Welshman, Tinmouth, … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team There are 18 species of catfishes in North Carolina including 3 undescribed species (Table 1) (Tracy et al. 2020). You might have heard people calling them Bullheads, Mud Cats, Butter Balls, Blue Channel Cats, Madtoms, Squealers, or many more colorful colloquial names. But each species has its own scientific (Latin) name, … Read more