Centrarchidae are a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Perciformes. The type genus is Centrarchus. The centrarchid family comprises 38 species of fish, 34 of which are extant and includes many fish familiar to North Americans, including the rock bass, largemouth bass, bluegill, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, and crappies. All species in the family are native to only North America.
The bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" or "perch" as is common in Texas. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes. It is native to North America and lives in streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds. It is commonly found east of the Rockies. It usually hides around and inside old tree stumps and other underwater structures. It can live in either deep or very shallow water, and will often move from one to the other depending on the time of day or season. Bluegills also like to find shelter among aquatic plants and in the shade of trees along banks.
The pumpkinseed is a North American Freshwater fish of the sunfish family (Centrarchidae) of order Perciformes. It is also referred to as pond perch, common sunfish, punkie, sunfish, sunny, and kivver.
The warmouth, is a freshwater fish of the sunfish family (Centrarchidae) that is found throughout the eastern United States. Other local names include molly, redeye, goggle-eye, red-eyed bream, and strawberry perch.
The Sacramento perch is an endangered sunfish native to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, Pajaro, and Salinas River areas in California, but widely introduced throughout the western United States.
The yellow perch, commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch,American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samuel Latham Mitchill from New York. It is closely related, and morphologically similar to the European perch ; and is sometimes considered a subspecies of its European counterpart. Other common names for yellow perch include American perch, coontail, lake perch, raccoon perch, ring-tail perch, ringed perch, and striped perch. Another nickname for the perch is the Dodd fish.
The redear sunfish, also known as the shellcracker, Georgia bream, cherry gill, chinquapin, improved bream, rouge ear sunfish and sun perch) is a freshwater fish in the family Centrarchidae and is native to the southeastern United States. Since it is a popular sport fish, it has been introduced to bodies of water all over North America. It is known for its diet of mollusks and snails.
The pirate perch is a freshwater fish that commonly inhabits coastal waters along the east coast of the United States and the backwater areas of the Mississippi Valley. This species is often found towards the bottom of clear, warm water habitats with low currents. These fish are normally solitary, carnivorous, and nocturnal. The pirate perch is known to consume live mosquito larva, amphipods, glass shrimp, meal worms, small fish, dragonfly and stonefly larvae, and earthworms.
The orangespotted sunfish is a North American species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family (Centrarchidae) of order Perciformes. These fish are widely distributed across the middle and eastern United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the east, from the Great Lakes south into the Gulf Coast. The orangespotted sunfish is ecologically unique and thrives in turbid, shallow systems that have few predators and low oxygen contents. The species prefers vegetated areas in sluggish backwaters or lakes, and can also be found in turbid rivers. The orangespotted sunfish can extend its range in lower-quality waters, which is not characteristic to other sunfish. Orangespotted sunfish vary in total length and age for different river basin originations, but can be found to live four to seven years, and recorded lengths are up to 15 cm (5.9 in).
The banded sunfish is a freshwater fish of the family, Centrarchidae. They can grow to 2–3 inches long. They are native to North America.
The banded killifish is a North American species of temperate freshwater killifish belonging to the genus Fundulus of the family Fundulidae. Its natural geographic range extends from Newfoundland to South Carolina, and west to Minnesota, including the Great Lakes drainages. This species is the only freshwater killifish found in the northeastern United States. While it is primarily a freshwater species, it can occasionally be found in brackish water.
The least chub is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae, the only member of the genus Iotichthys.
The golden topminnow is a fish of the genus Fundulus and is a United States native fish mostly distributed throughout the southeast, ranging from Kentucky and Ohio south into Florida. Although it has such a wide distribution throughout the south, the habitats and micro-habitats that it occupies do not differ much from one area of distribution to others. The golden topminnow is a small surface feeding fish that tends to reproduce late in the spring season and on into the early parts of the summer, and although the fry reach maturity fairly quickly the longevity of the golden topminnow is quite short. Because the golden topminnow is lower in the trophic level and is a small fish, it primarily feeds on small and/or drifting organisms at, or near the surface of, vegetated areas. This particular topminnow is not currently listed as an endangered species, nor does it have any particular type of management plan.
The banded pygmy sunfish, Elassoma zonatum, is a species of pygmy sunfish endemic to the United States, where it is found from Indiana and Illinois to Texas to the Atlantic coast. It prefers densely vegetated bodies of slow-moving water. This species can reach 4.7 cm (1.9 in) in total length, though most do not exceed 3.5 cm (1.4 in).
The dollar sunfish is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. It is categorized as a warm water pan-fish. Early settlers said that this species of sunfish resembled a European species they called bream. Historically it has been found along the Southern Atlantic coastal drainages from North Carolina to Florida, and west to Texas. Lepomis marginatus mainly feeds on detritus and filamentous algae as well as a few terrestrial insects. The juvenile and mature fish do not have many predators, but the eggs in the nest are in danger of predation from a few different species of fish.
The bantam sunfish is a species of freshwater fish in the genus Lepomis common throughout Louisiana, in extreme southeastern Texas, in southern Arkansas, and in a few places in western Kentucky and western Tennessee.
The goldstripe darter is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish, a darter from the subfamily Etheostomatinae, part of the family Percidae, which also contains the perches, ruffes and pikeperches. It is endemic to the southeastern United States where it is found in Gulf Slope streams from the Colorado River drainage in Texas to the Flint River in Georgia, the Atlantic Slope in Ocmulgee River system, Georgia, and the Mississippi embayment north as far as southeastern Missouri and western Kentucky. It is typically found in small springs, streams, and creeks with aquatic and marginal vegetation and detritus. The female spawns on multiple occasions between about mid-March and June, sticking the adhesive eggs to plants, gravel and the sides of rocks. The goldstripe darter is a common species with a wide range and numerous sub-populations, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".
Zenarchopteridae, the viviparous halfbeaks, is a family in the order Beloniformes. The Zenarchopteridae exhibit strong sexual dimorphism, practicing internal fertilisation, and in some cases ovoviviparous or viviparous. The members in the family are mainly found in fresh and brackish water of tropical Asia and New Guinea, but the genus Zenarchopterus also includes marine species from the Indo-Pacific. Several, such as the wrestling halfbeak, have become commonly traded aquarium fish.
The blackbanded sunfish is a freshwater fish species of the sunfish family (Centrarchidae). They are found in the United States ranging from New Jersey to central Florida.> The defining feature of this Black-banded sunfish is the black vertical strips that it has on both sides of its body. The term "Enneacanthus" comes from the Greek terms ennea, which means "nine times", and acanthi, which means "thorn". It is in a genus that consists of only three species along with the Banded Sunfish and the Bluespotted Sunfish. Collectively, they are commonly referred to as the "Banded Sunfish" or "Little Sunfish".
The Halloween darter is a small freshwater fish native to North America. It is found in Georgia and Alabama in the drainage basin of the Apalachicola River, specifically in the Flint River system and the Chattahoochee River system. It prefers shallow, fast-flowing areas with gravel bottoms in small and medium-sized rivers. It was first described in 2008, having not previously been distinguished from the blackbanded darter (P. nigrofasciata), which occurs in the same watershed. The color is somewhat variable, being generally blackish dorsally, with some individuals having indistinct saddle-like barring. Males have orange and dark lateral striping while females have dark stripes and a yellowish-green belly. At a maximum standard length of 101 mm (4 in), males are slightly larger than females, and both sexes develop distinctive orange barring on the edge of the first dorsal fin during the breeding season.
