The Fishes of North Carolina
Fritz Rohde1, Bryn H. Tracy2, and Michael Fisk3 1Wilmington, NC; 2Apex, NC; 3North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Aquatic Wildlife Diversity Program, Mebane, NC The American Brook Lamprey, Lethenteron appendix (Dekay, 1842) (Figure 1), was first discovered in August 1977 in the French Broad River at the mouth of Spring Creek in Hot Springs (Madison County) … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team The New River basin, in the extreme northwest corner of North Carolina, is one of the smallest river basins in the state with a drainage area of 754 mi2 (Figure 1). This basin borders Virginia and Tennessee and the Yadkin, Catawba, and Watauga basins in the state and tributaries of the … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team How did this fish, the smallest member of the Stickleback family, get here? And when? As written in our previous blog on sticklebacks (https://ncfishes.com/is-north-carolina-too-far-south-for-sticklebacks/), Dr. Hugh M. Smith, U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries, in 1907 made no mention of Fourspine Stickleback (Figure 1) in the Albemarle or Pamlico sounds (Smith 1907). In … Read more
By the NCFishes.comTeam In eastern North America, the family Gasterosteidae, known as sticklebacks, is a small family of five species commonly found in shallow brackish inlets, calm, heavily vegetated marshes and estuaries, tidal creeks, lagoons, and in the nearshore and offshore open ocean (Kells and Carpenter 2014; Rohde et al. 1994). Along the Atlantic coast, … Read more
This is the first, hopefully, in a series of blogs on North Carolina’s imperiled freshwater fish fauna. There are 258 described and undescribed species of freshwater fishes in North Carolina (Tracy et al. 2020). Unfortunately, 31% (79 species) of the 258 species are Federally or State listed as either Endangered, Threatened, Special Concern, or Significantly … Read more
Paddlefish, Polyodon spathula, is a unique and ancient fish species with no close relatives in North America (Figure 1). This prehistoric monster has been part of the Upper Tennessee River Basin fish community for millennia, if not longer. Unfortunately, their numbers have dwindled across their range over the last 100+ years due to damming, overfishing, … Read more
Due to habitat degradation, barriers to migration, and pollution, Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens have likely been extirpated from North Carolina and much of the Southeast United States for over 75 years. The first potential Lake Sturgeon record in NC was in 1873, when the newspaper North Carolina Citizen, documented a 4-foot sturgeon weighing over 22 … Read more
Spotfin Chub, Cyprinella monacha (=Erimonax monachus), is a federally Threatened species that has declined across its historical range primarily due to habitat degradation. It is a crevice spawner that requires clean and clear waterways with an abundance of bedrock. Spotfin Chub habitat is hard to come by in areas with high rates of sedimentation. In … Read more
A Candidate Conservation Agreement (CCA) was finalized in 2015 for the undescribed Sicklefin Redhorse, Moxostoma sp., and was signed by primary partners: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NWRC), Duke Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, Eastern Band Cherokee Indians, and Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The CCA is a formal agreement … Read more
By the NCFishes.com Team Two new identification keys to the freshwater fishes of North Carolina have been recently published by the North American Native Fishes Association (http://www.nanfa.org/) in their journal American Currents: Tracy, B.H., S.A. Smith, J.L. Bissette, and F.C. Rohde. 2021. Ahead by a whisker: freshwater catfish (Family Ictaluridae) diversity in North Carolina. American … Read more