These fish are in tanks and listed are both parent species. Fish were intentional crosses by mixing eggs with milt of known parents. I believe they are all males. For the real fish geeks the discussion gets quite interesting.

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showtopic=5228

Cody Note: See below for pictures of the pumpkinseed hybrids.

Can't access the photos. You have to be a member to see them.

dittos

Can't see 'em.

Great quote on there by fundulus:

"Hybrids appear, they live and die, and not much happens; kind of like the Seinfeld show."

My feelings exactly. Never could understand all the buzz about that program, and the guy made gazillions of bucks. Just dont get it.
Then again, I cant get over the big bucks paid to ole whats his name on the late night show...Letterman.
Now, O'Reilly, he deserves the new contract. Quite a comedian(yeh, right) and fence straddler.

Guys,

I can post the pictures here but would it be the ethical thing to do? I mean what if this site's pics were only accessible via registering and I moved pics to another site?

Thoughts?

Or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Can you ask them for permission? Personally I would think that if you credit the site of origination that they would embrace the free advertising.

I'll ask.

Why don't you guys register? It's painless.

Bruce,

The guy who made the intentional crosses and pics goes by the name of Centrarchid. He not only grows out bluegills in indoor tanks to 1.5 lbs. for foodfish, but apparently is some kind of educator in Missouri. He referred to a "student" which is why I assume he is.

Anyway I was bragging up your bluegills after he asked what kind of growth rate you got. Listen to what kind of growth rate he gets growing them out indoors:


We can raise really nice fish (in terms of weight) fast where exceptional males can reach 1.5 pounds in 18 months...

I thought for a second that I fell over dead....but I can still feel my fingers and toes, so maybe I just fainted.

The fly in the ointment was when he said the fish aren't as nice as the ones grown in ponds as in body confirmation, they may have bad fins etc. (in reference to my taxidermy market.)

Here is the entire post:


I am running about a dozen water reuse systems, most with the purpose of growing bluegill from stage between conception and 1.5 pounds.
The confirmation issue I mentioned earlier is caused by high stocking density, sleeping / perching on bottom when lights off, poor diet quality. We can raise really nice fish (in terms of weight) fast where exceptional males can reach 1.5 pounds in 18 months, but like so many other intensive production operations, we tend to produce animals will damaged finnage, odd morphology (sometimes phenotypic plasticity involved), and less than the best coloration. We are trying to lick these problems since many of our animals are finished out in ponds where quality in terms of appearence may be correlated with survival and reproductive performance when turned around for use as brood stock.

Cecil why don't you tell him to go to Big Bluegill and join in.

I could. I did PM him and ask if it was O.K. to post the pics.

Centrarcid on hte NANFA website I see now is Dr. James Wetzel.

He wants me to establish a link with NANFA (North American Native Fishes Association) to allow me to post the pictures.

Here is is:

http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?s=f56e4f207b5686d131e8023aed0d7cf8&showforum=195

Also to give credit to him for the following pics as:


Dr. James Wetzel
Bluegill Cultigen Project
Aquaculture Research
Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
Lincoln University
Jefferson City, MO


He says he can generate / post more images of a similar nature with time.

Here are his own words from the thread on NANFA:

"For those interested or not inclined to accept the existance of hybrids.

My student, while trying to build a photography tank made these images of hybrids involving a female pumpkinseed sunfish. Fish are half-siblings (dam / mother) generated from the same batch of eggs.

All specimans photographed are male. Interesting that some characters of pumpkinseed are obvious in some crosses but not others. Still trying to standardize background and lighting. Hybrid with redear typical in that head profile more similar to redear even among large animals. In contrast with allotetraploid version of pumpkinseed x redear (shown in earlier thread), the diploid shown here does acquire ther black ventral coloration of redear when on the nest."



"Yes, we squeezed out the eggs and placed them into six dishes before each dish had semen added from bluegill, central longear, greensunfish, redear, redspotted orwarmouth sunfishes. Products were incubated separately until they were large enough to fin clip. Fin clips thought needed only for warmouth and green hybrids thinking they might be hard to distinguish but results were easy to tell apart."




Pumpkinseed X Northern Bluegill



Pumpkinseed X Central Longear



Pumpkinseed X Redear



Pumpkinseed X Green Sunfish



Pumpkinseed X Red Spotted Sunfish

Anybody else think Dr. Wetzel would be an interesting speaker at our next Pond Boss Convention? Hint, hint...

And Branson wouldn't be very far for him to go either would it? Hint, hint.

That PSxLongyear is pretty neat looking.

I bet the PSxRES is one snail eating machine.

Yes it looks like a big ol' pumpkinseed except for the extended opercular flap!

Why do you think the PSXRES would be a snail eating machine other than both parents eat snails?

That's pretty much why.

Knowing what cross each is helps see the morphological traits of the parents. See the big mouth on the PS X GSF and the black nape scale tipping on the male PS X BG. Look at the fin differences and the background patterns/colors and the shapes. Nice work Cecil.

All the credit goes to Dr. Whetzel. All I did was post his pictures.

Cecil, This is a very interesting thread!

The photos of each cross are amazingly depictive of the individuals combined characteristics.
Were I a young man, I could make my life's work out of something like this.

Yes, it is fascinating. Do you recon it's possible to develop a true breeding hybrid, or is that an oxymoron?

You'd have to ask Dr. Whetzel or someone else with expertise in this area. It's over my head.

Cecil you are due credit for finding the info and posting it here "good work) even if the pics/text/info are from another site and person.

Bobad it depends. Here is why. The further apart the 2 parents genetics the greater the diversity of the genes and the more likely the Xs (assuming viability at all) will have increased heterozygosity leading to hybrid vigor followed by outbreeding depression (cause for non-true breeding). The problem is if the genes are real close (northern LMB and Fla LMB) they are often characterized as the same species (sub-species) and the offspring are not crosses in the common sense. Some studies argue that Fla and Nort LMB are different species but the gene difference (heterozygosity) is very small when compared to the difference between for example BG and GSF. Stated broadly "true breeding " fish populations are by definition (or consequence or necessity) the same species or very close ( much closer than the different lepomis).

Eric,

Didn't the American Fisheries Society decide the Florida Largemouth is a different species than the Northern Largemouth?

A bluegill that has a standard weight of 1.5 pounds has a calculated length of 11.74 inches (or vice versa). Very impressive growth indeed for being 18 months old. Do you know if the hefty BG are 11" long or are they just fat 10"ers?.
Cecil - they do have some interesting stuff on that website. I should peruse it more frequently. Thanks for the work of posting those photos.

Cecil I don't know if AFS did that or not. I am not even sure that is a decision for AFS. I do know that there are writers on both sides of the issue each with ( appearing at least to me) having an agenda.

Thanks for the great explanation Eric.

Thanks Cecil & Dr. James Wetzel!

Any idea if there are pictures with a male pumkinseed that was crossed with different females for comparison? I am curious how the sex of the parents may influence the outward appearence of the resulting hybrids.

I would register on the website and ask him Shorty. Sounds like he has crossed a lot of things to see the outcome.

Cecil, Can you ask Jim Wetzel if he is from Pittsburgh, PA? If so he knows me. We used to work together.

I just did in a PM I sent him. I'll let you know what I find out.

I may get to meet him in January. There is a seminar on biosecurity/VHS at his location in January. Hopefully I can get a peek at those big bluegills!

http://www.moaa.pond.org/2009meeting/2009meeting.htm

Bill,

Jim Whetzel is from southern Indiana and went to Purdue with our Aquamax man Dr. Mark Griffin. Maybe not the same guy?

I wonder what a Pumpkinseed, and bluespotted sunfish cross would look like.
bluespotsun

just adding my thanks to cecil for posting those pics....very cool, very educational....thanks cecil.