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A Virtual Museum on the State's Fish Biodiversity

Chrosomus eos

No common name
NS G5
Collection Details

Specimens

Photos

There are no photos available for this taxon yet.

Records

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes) Cypriniformes (Carps and Minnows) Cyprinidae (Carps and Minnows) Chrosomus Chrosomus eos

Description

This species account was compiled from FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.) and processed using AI-assisted text extraction. It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting. When citing, please reference the original source rather than this page. Learn more about our species accounts.

Characters

Body shape: elongated. Chrosomus eos is distinguished from a similar species C. erythrogaster by having more rounded, shorter (about equal to eye diameter) snout and more upturned mouth, with chin in front of upper lip. Other characters useful to identify this species include 70-90 lateral scales and red or yellow belly, head, and fins in large males (Ref. 86798).

Distribution

North America: Atlantic, Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and upper Mississippi, Missouri and Peace-Mackenzie River drainages, from Nova Scotia west to Northwest Territories and British Columbia in Canada; south to northern Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nebraska in USA. Isolated population in South Platte River system in Colorado, USA.

Habitat Associations

Freshwater. demersal. Found in: streams, lakes.

Biology

Inhabits lakes, ponds, bogs, and pools of headwaters and creeks. Usually occurs over silt, often near vegetation (Ref. 86798). Feeds mainly on algae, but also on zooplankton and aquatic insects. Preyed upon by fishes, kingfishers and mergansers (Ref. 1998). Spawning occurs in spring or early summer (Ref. 1998). Used as bait in parts of Ontario and Quebec (Ref. 1998).
Max length: 8.0 cm TL; common length: 4.8 cm TL; max age: 3 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none. A female attracts a few males with her darting movements. Together, the group dives into a mass of filamentous algae and release sperm and nonadhesive eggs. The group spawns in several algal masses.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2011-11-03. Resilience: High (tmax=3).

Commercial or Environmental Importance

Fisheries: commercial; aquarium: public aquariums.

References

Scott, W.B. and E.J. Crossman (1973) Freshwater fishes of Canada. Bull. Fish. Res. Board Can. 184: xi+1-966.
Cochran, P.A., D.M. Lodge, J.R. Hodgson and P.G. Knapik (1988) Diets of syntopic finescale dace, Phoxinus neogaeus, and northern redbelly dace, Phoxinus eos: a reflection of trophic morphology. Environ. Biol. Fishes 22(3):235-240.
Litvak, M.K. and R.I.C. Hansell (1990) Investigation of food habit and niche relationships in a cyprinid community. Can. J. Zool. 68:1873-1879.
Page, L.M. and B.M. Burr (2011) A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 663p.

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