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Golden shiner
Notemigonus crysoleucas
Photo credit: Bill Byrne, MA
Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
Habitat requirements and life history:
The golden shiner (2.5 to 11.8 inches) is a native fish that
prefers clean, slow, vegetated water with access to extensive,
soft-bottomed shallows. They are common in lake and ponds
and sluggish sections of rivers and streams. It is an active
fish that swims in a loose school off the bottom. They feed
from midwater to the surface on adult and immature states
of cladocerans, midges, dragonflies, beetles, and water mites,
and filamentous algae and mollusks. The golden shiner begins
to spawn when the water temperature reaches the high 60s and
continues through late summer. The eggs are scattered over
filamentous or rooted aquatic plants and abandoned. The golden
shiner is a very popular baitfish as it is the natural prey
of basses, pickerels and sunfish. (Sources:
Freshwater Fishes of Canada and Freshwater Fishes of the
Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, & Delaware, Atlas of North
American freshwater fishes)
Total length:
8 - 9 inches (up to 12 inches)
Pollution tolerance (US EPA): Tolerant
Classification:
Macrohabitat generalist
Number of fish found during 1954 &
2001 fish surveys:*
| Location |
No. of Fish 1954 |
No. of Fish 2001 |
| Assabet River |
179 |
78 |
| Fort Meadow Brook |
2 |
|
| Mill Brook |
|
10 |
| Nashoba Brook |
|
2 |
| Hob Brook |
|
1 |
| Spencer Brook |
5 |
5 |
| UNT Assabet River |
|
3 |
| Total |
186 |
99 |
*Sources:
Schlotterbeck, L.C. and W.A. Tompkins, 1954. "A
Fisheries Investigation of the Merrimack and Ipswich River
Drainages." Bureau of Wildlife Research and Management,
Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Game.
DFW, 2001. Assabet Watershed Fish Survey. MA Department of
Fisheries and Wildlife, Westborough, MA.
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