Rainbow shiner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Rainbow shiner |
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Hybopsis chrosomus Jordan, 1877 |
The rainbow shiner (Notropis chrosomus) is a small, colorful ray-finned fish found in North America. It belongs to the Notropis group of fish.
This fish is usually 5 to 8 centimeters long. Its body is often clear, with colors ranging from pink to golden. It has a shiny silver-black stripe along its sides. The bottom parts of its fins are reddish. During mating season, adult male rainbow shiners become even more colorful. Their belly fins turn blue, their heads become purple, and their noses turn red!
The rainbow shiner first lived only in the Mobile River system. You could find it in small, clear rivers that flow into the Alabama, Coosa, and Black Warrior rivers. Now, you can also find them in some rivers in Tennessee. They are also popular as pet fish for aquariums and outdoor ponds because of their beautiful colors.
Rainbow shiners usually lay their eggs between May and June.
Contents
About the Rainbow Shiner
This fish species mostly lives in small streams in Northwest Georgia, Northeastern Alabama, and parts of Southwest Tennessee. The rainbow shiner is a freshwater fish that likes areas with gravelly bottoms. These areas are called riffles and pools. They are often found with other fish from the Campostoma family.
Rainbow shiners mainly eat insects. Studies show they often eat tiny insect larvae called Chironomidae. But they are not picky eaters and will eat many different kinds of insects. Most rainbow shiners live for about two years. They are ready to have babies when they are about one year old. Before they lay eggs, they eat more food in late winter and spring. This gives them the energy they need to reproduce.
Where Rainbow Shiners Live
The rainbow shiner naturally lives in the Mobile Bay basin. This includes the Coosa, Cahaba, and Alabama River areas. This fish has also been seen in the Black Warrior River system. Some scientists think they might have been brought there by people.
Rainbow shiners are found along the southeast edge of the Black Warrior River system. They live in streams that start in limestone areas. You can also find rainbow shiners in rivers that flow into the Tennessee River. This includes Town Creek in northern Alabama and the South Chickamauga Creek system in north Georgia. No one is sure how they got to these new places. But one idea is that people accidentally released them from bait buckets.
How Rainbow Shiners Live
Rainbow shiners usually live in small, clear streams that don't have much mud. They like areas with gravel and sand. You can also find them in springs and other small, clear streams. They prefer freshwater habitats in places with mild temperatures.
These fish are known to eat many different kinds of insects. More than 80% of their diet is made up of invertebrates. Most of these are insects that live in water or on land. Their stomachs often contain larvae, insect parts, and tiny adult flies.
Even though rainbow shiners are sensitive to changes in their environment, their numbers have grown in some areas. For example, in the Upper Cahaba River, their population almost doubled between 1983 and 1995. This happened even though there was a lot of building and changes to the habitat. Other fish species in the same area saw their numbers go down.
Life Cycle and Reproduction
Adult rainbow shiners usually grow to be about 1.6 to 2.4 inches long. They grow faster in the spring, both in length and weight. Male fish live for about 11.7 months on average, while females live a bit longer, about 13.5 months. The oldest males can live up to 23 months, and females up to 25 months.
Most rainbow shiners are ready to reproduce by 12 months old. A few might wait until they are 24 months old. Since they live for just over two years and are ready to reproduce by one year, they usually have only two chances to lay eggs in their lifetime.
They lay their eggs in late spring or early summer when the water temperature is between 16 and 25 degrees Celsius. Rainbow shiners lay their eggs in places similar to where they live all year. But they often lay their eggs inside the nests of other fish, like Semotilus species and Nocomis species. Before laying eggs, rainbow shiners eat more food. This helps them get ready for the energy needed to produce eggs and find a mate.
Protecting Rainbow Shiners
Right now, the rainbow shiner is not a fish that scientists are very worried about. It does not need a lot of special protection or management. However, there is a big plan to help the entire Mobile River Basin aquatic ecosystem. This is the area where the rainbow shiner naturally lives.
The plan was created by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Its goal is to protect all the native animals and plants in the Basin. Many other water species in this area are declining. This is because more people are moving there, changing the land, and using the land in ways that harm the environment. The number of people and their needs for homes, fun, and food are expected to grow in this area.
So, the recovery plan wants everyone living in the Basin to help protect it. It focuses on three main ideas:
- Use existing laws and rules to protect endangered species. It also wants to create a plan to manage streams that focuses on protecting and restoring them.
- Encourage people to help voluntarily. This is the best way to reduce the harm caused by private land use and activities in the watersheds.
- Keep supporting research on the lives and needs of endangered water species. It also aims to develop ways to keep and breed them.
By making the habitats better in the Mobile River Basin, it is likely that rainbow shiner populations will stay healthy or even grow.
- Robert Jay Goldstein, Rodney W. Harper, Richard Edwards: American Aquarium Fishes. Texas A&M University Press 2000, ISBN: 978-0-89096-880-2, p. 109 (restricted online copy at Google Books)
- Leo Nico. 2010. Notropis chrosomus. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL.<https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=592> Revision Date: 12/5/2003
- Bart, H. L., M. F. Cashner, and K. R. Piller. 2011. Phylogenetic relationships of the North American cyprinid subgenus hydropholax. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 59:725-735.
- Holder, D. S. and S. L. Powers. 2010. Life-history aspects of the rainbow shiner, Notropis chrosomus (Teleostei: Cyprinidae), in northern Georgia. Southeastern Naturalist 9:347-358.
- Johnston, C. E. and K. J. Kleiner. 1994. Reproductive behavior of the rainbow shiner ("Notropis chrosomus") and the rough shiner ("Notropis baileye"), nest associates of the bluehead chub ("Nocomis leplocephalus") (Pisces: Cyprinidae) in the Alabama River drainage. Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science 65:230-238.
- Olson, Adric Delray. 2012. Life history traits of the mirror shiner, "Notropis spectrunculus", in western North Carolina. Doctoral dissertation, Western Carolina University.
- Onorato, D., R. A. Angus, and K. R. Marion. 2000. Historical changes in the icthyofaunal assemblages of the upper Cahaba River in Alabama associated with extensive urban development in the watershed. Journal of Freshwater Ecology 15:7-63.
- NatureServe 2013. Notropis chrosomus. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>.
- Froese, Rainer 2013. Notropis chrosomus. http://www.fishbase.org/summary/2848
- Fishes of Alabama and the Mobile Basin 2013. Notropis chrosomus. https://web.archive.org/web/20140206222049/http://www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/freshwater/fish/other/minnow/shiner/rainbow/
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Mobile River Basin Coalition Planning Committee, comps. Recovery Plan for Mobile River Basin Aquatic Ecosystem. Rep. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Www.fws.gov. Web.
- Eric Brodock: Rainbow Shinher - article in Finformation (volume 62, issue 2), a magazin of the Greater Pittsburgh Aquarium Society
See also
In Spanish: Notropis chrosomus para niños
