Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Sunfish-Including Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Sunfish id

Sunfish id links. These are also in the archives in the Sunfish thread https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92482#Post92482) has much more info on all aspects of Sunfish. Because so many questions arise on sunfish (what kind is this?) a new source thread is created here.



https://www.koaw.org/sunfishes


https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/fish-id/

ewest,

Thanks for bumping the sunfish ID links back up to "modern times".

I did scan through this sunfish pics in the first link.


The GSF pic is the most "bass like" GSF I have ever seen! Is that typical of what you Pond Bossers see, or have I been catching some sort of GSF distant, weak hybrid?

(In many different BOWs.)

Typical GSF

Also on the GSF you will see the orange/yellow border on the anal fin.

Thanks guys!

If you removed the opercular flap and the blue/green wavy lines on the cheek of ewest's GSF in the top pic, I think I would mis-identify it as a little SMB if I was looking down on it from above!

The GSF we commonly catch are certainly colored like the GSF in ewest's bottom pic. (And match the body features.)

However, I think they are definitely less fusiform. Maybe they are just healthy chunks of fish, or maybe they have a little BG in the bloodline?

1.) What is the correct name for the shape of a pure-strain, mature BG?

2.) Now that genetic testing is feasible for animal studies, are there instances of hybrid BG/GSF in nature that are several generations past the initial cross?

3.) I believe the consensus on Pond Boss is that stocked hybrid BG in ponds tend to revert back more towards their GSF traits. However, while there may be pure-strain BG in the pond, there are not usually GSF that were intentionally added to the pond. Do the GSF traits come out more in subsequent generations, even if the HBG are breeding only with other stocked HBG?

(There are a lot of assumptions in Question 3. I LIKE it when people on the forum point out my erroneous assumptions. If you people aren't going to correct me, then who will?)

Are you married? LOL

Still married!

But it is definitely slowing the accumulation of the nest egg required to get going on my new pond projects.

Somehow, 1-1 ties on budget votes DO NOT seem to go my way!

I was thinking your wife might correct you if we don't. LOL

1. No correct name but - plate shaped are referred to as Compressiform .

2. Yes and that is not new or recent - can be F2 , Fx for subsequent generations, or a back cross if the hybrid crosses with a parental species.

3. HBG X HBG are not common but do exist. The offspring can exhibit outbreeding depression (loss of hybrid vigor) but they do not revert to GSF. Some traits (bad)may be pronounced in subsequent cross generations but that is due to genetics of crossing not because its genes revert to GSF. Pure strain GSF are not so easy to find and that fact is thought to skew results in some older studies.