Green sunfish
Encyclopedia
The green sunfish is a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 in the sunfish family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 (family
Centrarchidae
Centrarchidae
The sunfishes are a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Perciformes. The type genus is Centrarchus . The family's 27 species includes many fishes familiar to North Americans, including the rock bass, largemouth bass, bluegill, pumpkinseed, and crappies...

) of order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Perciformes
Perciformes
The Perciformes, also called the Percomorphi or Acanthopteri, is one of the largest orders of vertebrates, containing about 40% of all bony fish. Perciformes means perch-like. They belong to the class of ray-finned fish and comprise over 7,000 species found in almost all aquatic environments...

. A panfish
Panfish
A panfish, also spelled pan-fish or pan fish, is an edible game fish that usually doesn't outgrow the size of a frying pan. The term is also commonly used by anglers to refer to any small catch that will fit in a pan, but is large enough to be legal. However its definition and usage varies with...

 popular with anglers
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, the green sunfish is also kept as an aquarium
Aquarium
An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...

 fish by hobbyists. They are usually caught by accident, while fishing for other game fish. Green sunfish can be caught with live bait such as nightcrawlers
Nightcrawlers
Nightcrawlers are a form of earthworm. Prized primarily for use as fishing bait, nightcrawlers are generally known as either Canadian or European...

, waxworm
Waxworm
Waxworms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths, which belong to the snout moth family . Two closely related species are commercially bred – the lesser wax moth and the greater wax moth...

s, and mealworm
Mealworm
Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor, a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult...

s. Grocery store baits such as pieces of hot dog or corn kernels can even catch fish. Small lures have been known to occasionally catch Green Sunfish.
The green sunfish is said to have polarization sensitive vision not found in humans and other vertebrates mostly which helps in enhancement of visibility of target objects in scattering media, using a method called polarization difference imaging.

Geographic Distribution

The green sunfish is native to a wide area of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 east of the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

, from the Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

 basin in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, to the Gulf Coast
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and northern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. They are specifically indigenous to a number of lakes and rivers such as the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

 and some of the basins of the Mississippi river
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

. Green sunfish have been introduced to many bodies of water all across the United States and therefore are frequently encountered (Page et al. 1991, p. 267). L. cyanellus has been transplanted to many countries in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, in some of which it has become established.

Description

The green sunfish is blue-green in color on its back and sides with yellow-flecked bony-ridge scales called ctenoid scales, as well as yellow coloration on the ventral
Anatomical terms of location
Standard anatomical terms of location are designations employed in science that deal with the anatomy of animals to avoid ambiguities that might otherwise arise. They are not language-specific, and thus require no translation...

 sides. They also have a dark spot located near the back end of the dorsal fin
Dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...

, the bases of the anal fin
Fish anatomy
Fish anatomy is primarily governed by the physical characteristics of water, which is much denser than air, holds a relatively small amount of dissolved oxygen, and absorbs more light than air does.- Body :...

s (Philips et al. 1982, p. 208; Page et al. 1991, p. 267) and on the ear plate ("Green Sunfish"). It has a relatively big mouth and long snout that extends to beneath the middle of the eye (Philips et al. 1982, p. 208; Page et al. 1991, p. 267). Its pectoral fins are short with rounded edges containing 13-14 pectoral fin rays
Fish anatomy
Fish anatomy is primarily governed by the physical characteristics of water, which is much denser than air, holds a relatively small amount of dissolved oxygen, and absorbs more light than air does.- Body :...

 (Page et al. 1991, p. 267), a dorsal fin with approximately ten dorsal spines ("Green Sunfish: Identification") and a homocercal tail
Fish anatomy
Fish anatomy is primarily governed by the physical characteristics of water, which is much denser than air, holds a relatively small amount of dissolved oxygen, and absorbs more light than air does.- Body :...

. The typical length ranges from about 3-7 inches and usually weighs less than a pound ("Green Sunfish"). The green sunfish reaches a maximum recorded length of about 30 cm (12 in), with a maximum recorded weight of 960 g (2.2 lb
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...

). Identification of sunfish species from one another can sometimes be difficult as these species frequently hybridize (Philips et al. 1982, p. 208-209).

Habitat

The species prefers vegetated areas in sluggish backwaters, lakes, and ponds with gravel, sand, or bedrock bottoms. They also can be found in very muddy waters and are able to tolerate poor water conditions. Green sunfish tend to spend their time hiding around rocks, submerged logs and other objects that provide cover and protection ("Green Sunfish").

Diet

Its diet can include aquatic insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and larvae
Larvae
In Roman mythology, lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae as disturbing or frightening...

, insects that fall into the water, crayfish
Crayfish
Crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads – members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea – are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters, to which they are related...

, snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, some small fish, zooplankton
Zooplankton
Zooplankton are heterotrophic plankton. Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton" is derived from the Greek zoon , meaning "animal", and , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter"...

, and other small invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

s ("Green Sunfish"; "Sunfish Biology").

Reproduction

Green sunfish begin spawning
Spawn (biology)
Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...

 in the summer with the exact time varying with location and water temperature. When they do spawn, the males create nests in shallow water by clearing depressions in the bottom (Philips et al. 1982, p. 209), often near a type of shelter such as rocks or submerged logs (Paulson 2004). He then defends his nest from other males using visual displays and physical force when necessary (Paulson 2004). On occasion simply constructing a nest is sufficient for the male to attract a mate but when it is not he will court her with grunts and lead her to his nest. They continue their courtship dance, swimming with each other around the nest until the female descend to deposit her eggs in the nest. The female will lay anywhere from 2,000 to 26,000 eggs and leave them for the male to guard. He keeps watch over them until they hatch in 3 to 5 days, all the while protecting them and fanning them with his fins, keeping them clean and providing them with oxygenated water. When they hatch the fish remain near the nest for a few days, then leave to feed and fend for themselves (Paulson 2004). After the eggs have hatched the male will often seek to attract another female to lay her eggs in his nest ("Green Sunfish: Identification").

Green sunfish tend to nest in areas close to other green sunfish as well as other species of sunfish. Due to the close proximity of multiple nests a green sunfish female may deposit some of her eggs into the nest of a male of a different species. This in turn leads to the next generation containing some amount of hybrids (Paulson 2004). These green sunfish hybrids will often look like a combination of its parents, often making it difficult to distinguish one species from another (Philips et al. 1982, p. 209).

Etymology

The generic name Lepomis derives from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

λεπίς (scale) and πώμα (cover, plug, operculum). The specific epithet, cyanellus, derives from the Greek κυανός (blue).
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