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#99580 10/15/07 07:49 AM
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Shorty Offline OP
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About 10 years ago our nieghbors hired hand was out fishing and let a male GSF loose in our pond. The following pictures are likely from a male GSF X female BG cross, at least that was opinion of the experts after an examination of the gill rakers. Ignore the red ear tab in the first pictue, someone asked what a pumkinseed looked like and there was a red sharpe handy. \:\/ Also note the small mouth size and the lack of yellow or white tinting along the fins. All of the hybrids we caught in our pond looked exactly like this.







The next three pictures are are from 5 minutes later after the hybrid had been in a black bucket for a little bit.









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I don't know Shorty. Looks like some pumpkinseed in there to me.


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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If it's been 10 years, Shorty, I'm thinking these are Fx hybrids.

I wonder if local conditions have selected amongst all the different recombinations of GSF & BG and chosen the fish that thrive there and all look like these?

Pretty fish, in any case.


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Cecil, I actually took this fish in for a state record pumkinseed application, it would have beat or tied our state record. Our G & P biologist actually took to it to one of our University of NE fisheries biologists for examination of the gill rakers. I was told it was likely a male GSF x female BG based on the gill rakers. The other possibilty is that that the male GSF that got loose in our pond was actually a hybrid itself, the lack of tinting on the fins is unusual. I do know the nieghbors hired hand was aquiring his bait 3/4 of a mile below our pond in a small creek.

Theo, only one batch of hybrids was ever produced to my knowledge and they all looked like this.

Last edited by Shorty; 10/15/07 08:25 AM.


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Shorty thanks for finding and posting the pics. Another chance to encourage the use of WiscFish - see pic below . Look below not only at the color etc but the other morph features including the gill rakers - PS X BG vs. BG X GSF . Then look at the short stubby PS gill rakers. Another example of how difficult this can be. Shorty's fish looks like the PS X BG below but the gill rakers can tell a different story.

PS X BG


PS X BG close up


PS X BG gill rakers


GSF X BG gill rakers


PS gill rakers - short and thick 9-12.



PS X GSF



I will add the pics/link to the HBG thread. Good job Shorty !! \:\)




Last edited by ewest; 10/15/07 09:22 AM.















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Here is a blown up picture of me holding the fish after it had been in a black bucket for a few minutes. In the first few pictures the color of this fish looked like it had been washed out quite a bit, it had spent the last couple of hours in a white lined cooler. I am still amazed what a few minutes in a black bucket did to bring the coloration back to what it looked like when I fisrt caught it.




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Firstly, I question the identification of the "male green sunfish (GSF)" that the neighbor's hired hand stocked into the pond. If there was no photo of this orginal fish, then I am agreeing with Cecil and ewest that the "male" fish was likey a pumpkinseed sunfish not a green sunfish.

The gill cover markings of your hybrid sunfish are very similar to those of pumpkinseed sunfish parentage and not green sunfish.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/15/07 07:21 PM.

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Ahhh, but the gill raker exam concluded it was likely a male GSF X female BG cross, the pumkinseed or pumkinseed x BG gill raker charateristics were not present. Now, could the introduced GSF male have actually been a hybrid with some BG charateristics instead of a pure strain GSF? I do know that I was also told by the specialists that they rarely see this type of hybrid, most of what they see are male BG x female GSF cross which is your standard hatchery cross. I used to catch bait down in the same spot long ago and can say with confidence that they are GSF or possibly GSF hybrids in the creek. I do know that pumkinseeds are not common in the southern part of NE, they are so uncommon that I have never seen one in person. GSF on the otherhand are everywhere and quite common in our area. My brother did catch and remove this rouge male within a year or two of its introduction. We may have had 2-3 dozen of these hybrids in the pond at one point, most of them have disappeared over the years but my brother in law did say that he caught a 11-1/4" "pumkinseed" last summer, he did give me a funny look when I told him it was a hybrid and not really a true pumkinseed.



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Here is a plate showing the gill rakers of a green sunfish. The gill rakers of a bluegill are similar length, thus a hybrid BGXGSF will have rakers similar to those in the GSFXBG photo (J.Lyons) displayed by ewest. The gill rakers of a hybrid pumpkinseedXBG will be similar to that shown in ewest's BGXPS hybrid (J.Lyons). One way to get some more info on this topic is; Shorty, the next time someone catches one of your "hybrid" BG get us a photo of its gill rakers and we can make some comparisons. Now you have a goal for next summer - catch one of those hybrids. I've sen a lot of GSFXBG hybrids and I have never seen any combination of GSFXBG hybrid with that unique color pattern on the gill cover. Your hybrid fish also appears to have longer pectorial fins than the typical GSFXBG hybrid. Also the small mouth is not typical of a GSFXBG cross. I think there are too many atypical features on your hybrid fish for me to agree that it is a GSFXBG cross. Your fish could be unique. Inquiring minds want to know. Is there some rule that state fishiery biologists never make mistakes? To error is human. The neighbors hired hand could have caught a unique looking sunfish (PS) rather than an ordinary GSF and decided to give it special home by stocking it in your pond. Anglers are always doing "favors" for themselves and pondowners.



Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/15/07 08:21 PM.

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 Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Is there some rule that state fishery biologists never make mistakes?


Of course, Bill. That's why they get the big money.


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Bill, one of the things I was told was that you get a very different looking hybrid when you have male GSF X female BG cross, it looks much different than the standard male BG x female GSF that most hatcheries produce. I agree, it is an unusual looking cross, I originaly mistook it for pure pumkinseed and thought I had caught a new state record. That's why I dug the pictures out my archives and scanned them. To be honest with you I havn't personaly seen one of these hybrids in our pond in the last 6-7 years. I do know that they seemed to be more suceptable to low DO events than our standard BG, this could be a down side to hybrid vigor. I do know know that the opinion of our biologist and the university fisheries professor that examined it was based solely on the examination of the gill rakers and not the outward appearence of this hybrid. Now I have seen an almost identical hybrid in another lake here in Lincoln, the only real difference between the picture I posted and the other ones I have seen were that the other ones did have the yellow/white tinting along the fins. These were the first hybrids we started catching there 5-6 years ago, most of the hybrids we see now look like you standard hatchery cross. If I do cath another one I will definately take lots of pictures, including the gill rakers.



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Shorty I have heard that the 2 HBG crosses (fGSF X mBG vs. fBG X mGSF) look different but can not yet substantiate that at this point. That was one reason for the HBG thread. http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=99653&fpart=1 Thanks for you input on both threads. I will keep looking for confirmation and share what I find.

One other thing you posted above that is interesting is " I do know that they seemed to be more susceptible to low DO events than our standard BG .... " . That would indicate , assuming it is a genetically passed on trait to hybrids, that GSF were not in the mix as GSF have very good tolerance for low DO water - better than BG. I don't know about PS DO tolerance.
















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Ewest, what makes me doubt the male was a pumkinseed is that NE has very few locations with pumkinseeds, most are located on the northeastern part of the state with a few places in the sandhills as well, other than that they are very uncommon, especially in southern NE. Here is a range map.

http://tnfish.org/SpeciesFishInformation_TWRA/Research/Pumpkinseed_LepomisGibbosusInformation_NS.pdf



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Shorty I understand. I still don't know how warmouth and bowfin got in one of our ponds. \:o
















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Ewest, I do have a good idea on how this one got in our pond and where it came from by talking with our neighbors hired hand. I have also ran a seinne net down in the very same spot in the past for fatheads and crawdads too. I am fairly confident that all that is in there besides fatheads is GSF and possibly some BG X GSF hybrids. \:\)



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Shorty, If the hybrids of maleGSF and femaleBG look like your fish then I want to produce some for myself. I do not understand where the tanish brown blotches come from on the gill covers of your fish.

My most recent fish distribution map (Atlas of NA Freshwater Fishes) shows an isolated pocket of pumpkinseeds in the SE corner of Nebraska that surrounds the Lincoln area.

I have a publication of Hybridization of Four Species of Sunfishes from Bulletin IL Natural History Survey -1967. It mentions that the maleGSFXfemaleBG produces around a 70% male offspring compared to the other cross where around 97% are male; thus they became more popular.
Their photo of the maleGSXfemaleBG does look more similar to your fish than the other BGXGSF cross. However, neither F1 fish looks close to the color pattern of your fish. I do say that color pattern is or can be a very weak character for identifying fish. Maybe I should take my own advice until more information is known.
An interesting point in this publication is they have a photo of a hybrid maleGSFXBGfemale resting on a scale. That fish was 6 yrs old, 12.2" long and weighed 2 lbs 2 oz.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/16/07 09:17 PM.

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 Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
I do not understand where the tanish brown blotches come from on the gill covers of your fish.


That aspect by itself looks rather RES-ish to my untrained eyes.


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Well, it is an unsual looking hybrid, that's why I posted up these old pictures for discussion. Who knows, I would be thrilled if these were PS hybrids rather than GSF hybrids. I wish I had taken a photo of the gill rakers too. I can tell you that the rouge fish my brother removed sure looked like a GSF to me. ;\)

 Quote:
An interesting point in this publication is they have a photo of a hybrid maleGSFXBGfemale resting on a scale. That fish was 6 yrs old, 12.2" long and weighed 2 lbs 2 oz.


Now that is encouraging! \:\)



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Info for iding lepomis and what they eat.



Food of Three Species of Sunfishes

(Lepomis, Centrarchidae) and

Their Hybrids in Three

Minnesota Lakes

DAVID A. ETNIER

Department o• Zoology and Entomology

University o• Tennessee

Knoxville, Tennessee 37916







Wisc Fish on PS traits - note last para.

Mouth and snout: Mouth terminal, relatively small and slightly oblique, with pads of small teeth on the jaws. No barbels. Body patterning, color, and scales: Back brown or olive, sides olive or yellow-olive, belly yellow or yellow-orange. Sides with numerous irregular yellow or red-orange spots and/or small blotches and sometimes faint diffuse vertical bars. Sometimes 3-5 bluish lines radiating backward from the eye; opercular flap dark with a red spot at the posterior margin. Dorsal, caudal, and to a lesser extent anal fins usually darkly pigmented with faint dark blotches or light spots; pelvic and pectoral fins lightly pigmented to dusky. 38-43 ctenoid lateral scales. Body shape and size: Body laterally compressed and deep; oval in cross section. Typically 125-200 mm (5-8 in) TL; maximum in Wisconsin about 250 mm (10 in).

Tail, dorsal and other fins: Slightly forked or round tail. Dorsal fin with 2 lobes, broadly joined by a membrane and appearing as one fin, the first with 10-11 spines and the second with 10-12 rays. Pelvic fins thoracic. Adipose fin absent. Anal fin with 3 spines and 10-11 rays.

All Lepomis species in Wisconsin have the potential to hybridize with each other, and certain combinations are relatively common: pumkinseed X warmouth, pumpkinseed X bluegill, pumpkinseed X green sunfish (photos).




two centrarchids, redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) and pumpkinseed (L. gibbosus),

possess both upper and lower pharyngeal teeth and are likely to consume more zebra mussels

than fishes with only lower pharyngeal teeth.



Last edited by ewest; 10/17/07 09:05 AM.















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Ewest/Bill, my best guess at the time the photos were taken is that the mouth size on this hybrid was roughly just 5% bigger than a standard BG of the same size.



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I got this from one of our state Bioligists regarding the hybrid pictures I posted, makes sense to me.

 Quote:
Steve,

That is a tough one. First of all, no, I know of no populations of pumpkinseed sunfish anywhere in southeast Nebraska. You can start finding some pumpkinseeds when you get into the sandhills and then west from there, but I cannot think of any populations we have in any other parts of the state. Pumpkinseeds are more of a nothern, "cooler" water sunfish. As with several other species you can find them in parts of Nebraska and in states to our north and east, but you do not find them south of Nebraska and for that matter you do not find them in southern, southeastern Nebraska.

Of course all I can comment on is the pictures you posted, and you know I always post disclaimers about identifying fish from pictures. Sure you can get a good idea and in some cases make a positive identification from photos, but in other cases you need to see more than what the photos show. Having said that, I will tell you that those photos certainly raise my curiosity. I would say that pumpkinseed would NOT be my initial impression. Some type of sunfish hybrid would be my suspicion. My "usual speech" about hybrids is that they usually have characteristics that are intermediate or a combination of the parental species. Those characteristics can vary quite a bit and positive identification based upon visual characteristics may not be possible. Ultimately, genetic analysis may be necessary in order to make a positive identification and that may be especially true with the sunfish species that can readily hybridize. I know of one small pit in central Nebraska that has green sunfish, bluegill and redear sunfish all in the same water less than 1/2 acre in size. The words "hybrid swarm" may be the best description of the sunfish in that pit, and I sampled sunfish from that pit that I would hate to bet any money on their identity.

After looking at your photos I did some head-scratching and you want to know one of the first thoughts that popped into my mind? There weren't some redear sunfish in there sometime that a bluegill could have hybridized with, were there?

After reading some of the comments in the pondboss thread you started, let me make one other comment. No, fisheries biologists are not infallible when it comes to fish identification. Especially when it comes to hybrids, it is very possible that fisheries professionals can be fooled by visual examination. You might need a geneticist specializing in the genetics of those fish species to come up with a positive identification.

How's that for a rambling, "beat-around-the-bush" answer from a pointy-headed fish biologist?

Later,

Daryl B.

P.S. If you wish to share my message with others, feel free.




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I agree with Daryl, genetic analysis will be the only good way to ID those fish. The hard part will be catching one of those "relic" hybrid fish.


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Problem is there are very few geneticists that know about lepomis much less about crosses (esp 3+ way crosses). Finding one with time and then having the work done once you catch one without spending a bunch could be a problem.
















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One thing is for certain; it is some sort of hybrid and not a pure strain BG, GSF, RES, or PS. It is also an “anomaly” among what you typically see with your standard lepomis crosses. To paraphrase Thomas Kuhn, it is the build up of anomalies that drives paradigm shifts and revolutions in scientific thought.

Give it time ewest, someday the DNA mapping of the lepomis members will get done.



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One thing is for sure...Rolling Spawn's new album is going to be called "Hybrid Swarm."


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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