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- Great Lakes Fishes Field Guide
Great Lakes Fishes Field Guide
Two hundred species of fishes call the Great Lakes home. Some are big. Some are small. Some are so common that just about everyone has heard of them. Some are so rare that only a handful of biologists have ever seen them in the wild. And some are popular to catch and eat, supporting a ...more ↓
Two hundred species of fishes call the Great Lakes home. Some are big. Some are small. Some are so common that just about everyone has heard of them. Some are so rare that only a handful of biologists have ever seen them in the wild. And some are popular to catch and eat, supporting a multibillion-dollar industry.
This guide is intended to help people identify fishes from the Great Lakes. It focuses on those species that people are most likely to come across, as well as a sample of fish diversity. If you see a fish you cannot identify, you can post an image online so others (including Shedd Aquarium experts) can help you figure it out. These images will be incorporated into an online database that will publicly display the pictures on a map. This information can be used for research and conservation projects that will help sustain and protect our Great Lakes natural heritage.
Thank you for helping to keep the lakes great! less ↑
- All 58
- Tags
- Bowfin 1
- Brown 2
- Carp 5
- Eel 1
- Gar 1
- Shad 1
- Small 1
- Sucker 2
- Vegetation 1
- adipose fin 14
- air breather 2
- anus beneath throat 1
- bait 4
- bass 2
- black spots on tail 1
- blotch behind head 2
- blotches on body 1
- bony plates 1
- bottom 4
- catfish 2
- cod 1
- dark bars 1
- darter; 1
- deep 1
- deep water 1
- die-offs 1
- drum 1
- duck-billed mouth 2
- emerald 1
- eyes below mouth 3
- feeder tuffies 1
- filament extending from back fin 1
- five pairs of barbels 1
- fleshy lips 4
- four barbels 1
- four pairs of barbels 2
- goby 1
- golden 1
- green 2
- hard scales 1
- herring 1
- horizontal mouth 1
- invasive 18
- jumps 1
- lamprey 1
- large 4
- large mouth 3
- large scales 3
- long thin jaws 1
- longfin along back 1
- lower tail tip white 1
- many teeth 1
- minnow 4
- mottled brown 2
- mouth below head 4
- mouth partially under head 1
- native 39
- nests 2
- no barbels 1
- one barbel 1
- pan-shaped body 5
- parasite 1
- perch 3
- pike 2
- pirate perch 1
- rare 1
- red eye 1
- redhorse 2
- ridge along belly 2
- rounded tail 1
- salmon 5
- sculpin 1
- silver 2
- silverside 1
- skinny 1
- small scales 2
- smallmouth 1
- smelt 1
- snake-like body 4
- spawning migrations 3
- sport fish 15
- spots 1
- stripes 1
- sturgeon 1
- sucking disk mouth 1
- suction cup fin below body 1
- sunfish 6
- surface 1
- tall 2
- temperate bass 2
- topminnow 1
- trout 3
- trout-perch 1
- two pairs of barbels 1
- typical fish mouth 1
- upturned mouth 1
- weatherfish 1
- wetlands 1
- whitefish 2
- yellow 1
- yellowish green 1
Johnny Darter
1
Etheostoma nigrum
Edited by alavire and Shedd Aquarium, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Photo Credits
- 1. (c) Rob Curtis, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), uploaded by Rob Curtis
