Orangespotted sunfish facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Orangespotted sunfish |
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Bryttus humilis Girard, 1858 |
The orangespotted sunfish (Lepomis humilis) is a type of freshwater fish found in North America. It belongs to the sunfish family, called Centrarchidae. These fish live across the middle and eastern parts of the United States, from the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Gulf Coast. You can also find them from the Great Lakes southwards.
What makes the orangespotted sunfish special is that it can live in murky, shallow waters where there aren't many predators and the oxygen levels are low. Other sunfish usually can't handle these conditions. They like areas with plants in slow-moving waters or lakes, and sometimes even in murky rivers. Orangespotted sunfish can live for about four to seven years. The longest one ever recorded was about 15 centimeters (6 inches) long.
Male orangespotted sunfish make grunting sounds to attract females for mating. They often build their nests close together in groups. This fish is not endangered because it lives in so many different places. It has also been moved to new places like rivers in Florida, Alabama, Texas, Colorado, Michigan, and even Canada.
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Where Do Orangespotted Sunfish Live?
This fish is very common in North America. It lives from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf Coast, and from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. Studies show that orangespotted sunfish often live in large, murky lakes. You can find them in the Canard River near Ontario, Canada, but they were brought there by people. In Texas, they have been introduced as far south as the Rio Grande area.
What Do Orangespotted Sunfish Eat?
Orangespotted sunfish like to live in shallow, muddy waters, like flooded areas or places with fine sand. As they grow, they explore new areas. Their main food includes insects like corixids and chironomids, tiny water animals called zooplankton, and other small creatures that live in the water. They also eat smaller fish. Even if they live in different parts of a lake, their diet doesn't change much compared to other sunfish.
If the food they eat changes, their bodies can change too. This is called phenotypic plasticity. For example, if they need to catch certain types of prey, their body might become longer with an angled snout, or deeper with a blunt snout. This helps them catch their food better.
Orangespotted Sunfish Life Cycle and Reproduction
Orangespotted sunfish usually breed once or twice in June and July. They do this in groups in shallow water near the shore. Flooded areas and backwaters are important places for them to lay eggs and for young fish to grow. They lay their eggs on gravel, and the tiny embryos float in the water.
Their nesting areas can get crowded because they are often close to where other fish species nest. This can sometimes lead to them breeding with other types of sunfish. Other fish, like the Topeka shiner, sometimes use sunfish nests too. This is because nesting sunfish fan the water with their tails, which helps clean the area and aerate (add oxygen to) the eggs, making it a good spot for other fish to lay their eggs.
Male orangespotted sunfish make grunting sounds to attract females. When a male sees a female, he grunts and swims back and forth between her and his nest to try and win her over. The sounds they make are unique to their species. Female orangespotted sunfish can tell the difference between their sounds and the sounds of other sunfish. These fish can live up to four to seven years. They are usually about 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) long, but can grow up to 15 centimeters (6 inches).
Protecting Orangespotted Sunfish Habitats
The places where orangespotted sunfish live, especially floodplains, can change easily because of nature or human activities. In many areas, the connection between rivers and lakes has been changed, and floods have been reduced for farming. This has affected the orangespotted sunfish and other species that live in these floodplain lakes.
Runoff from farms and factories can cause problems for water quality. It can increase sedimentation (when dirt and particles settle at the bottom), which can reduce oxygen in the water and lead to too many nutrients in the lake (eutrophication). Luckily for orangespotted sunfish, they do well in murky, shallow waters with low oxygen. So, increased sedimentation doesn't necessarily harm their habitat, though it might break it up into smaller pieces.
In Canada, laws like the Fisheries Act protect all fish species, including the orangespotted sunfish. This means their spawning, nursery, and living areas must be managed properly. Scientists use different methods to study orangespotted sunfish populations, such as special nets and electrofishing (using electricity to temporarily stun fish for counting).
How Can We Help Orangespotted Sunfish?
The orangespotted sunfish is not as easily harmed by human changes as many other freshwater fish. Since they live in lakes surrounded by farms, it's important for managers, farmers, and other groups to work together. Problems like increased sedimentation and turbidity (murkiness) in the water need to be fixed first when planning how to help these fish. More information is needed about how floodplain waters are changing to fully understand what the orangespotted sunfish needs.
One way to reduce lake sedimentation is through "lake drawdowns." This is when managers use pumps to lower the water level, which helps compact the sediment. This process can be expensive, but it has been used in places like Swan Lake, Illinois, by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Seasonal drawdowns can also connect rivers better and have been shown to improve habitats for orangespotted sunfish.
Water pollution from power plants is another long-term issue that managers need to consider. More studies should be done in all areas where orangespotted sunfish live to check on their populations and track any future changes. This can be done by using nets or electrofishing to count how many fish are in an area. Right now, no land needs to be specially protected for this fish because it's not endangered. However, it's important to be careful if new dams are built, as they could break up the orangespotted sunfish's habitat.
- FishBase: Lepomis humilis
