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The golden shiner (''Notemigonus crysoleucas'') is a
cyprinid Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest ...
fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...
native to eastern
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
. It is the sole member of its genus. Much used as a
bait fish 300px, Feeder Goldfish are common baitfish. Bait fish (or baitfish) are small-sized fish caught and used by anglers as bait to attract larger predatory fish, particularly game fish. Baitfish species are typically those that are common and bre ...
, it is probably the most widely pond-cultured fish in the United States. It can be found in Quebec, and its French name is "Mené jaune" or "Chatte de l'Est".


Taxonomy

It is the only North American member of the Old World clade within subfamily
Leuciscinae Leuciscinae is a subfamily of the freshwater fish family Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows. Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnows. As the name suggests, most members of the O ...
.


Description

Though it has been known to reach lengths of , in the wild the golden shiner is usually between long. The body is laterally compressed (deep-bodied). The back is dark green or olive, and the belly is a silvery white. The sides are silver in smaller individuals, but golden in larger ones. There can be a faint dusky stripe along the sides. The anal fin is large and has 8-19 rays, while the dorsal fin comprises almost always 8 rays. Scales are relatively large and easily lost when the fish is handled. The mouth is small and upturned. Two characteristics can distinguish the golden shiner from all other minnows: (1) the
lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelial ...
has a pronounced downward curve, with its lowest point just above the pelvic fins; and (2) there is a fleshy keel lacking scales on the belly between the pelvic fins and the base of the anal fin. The lack of scales on the keel is important to differentiate the golden shiner from the very similar-looking
rudd ''Scardinius'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae commonly called rudds. Locally, the name "rudd" without any further qualifiers is also used for individual species, particularly the common rudd (''S. erythrophthalmus''). T ...
, ''Scardinius erythrophtalmus'', a European species that has been introduced in a few places in North America. The rudd also has a midventral keel, but that keel bears scales. Golden shiner and rudd can in fact hybridize and hybrids have a few scales on their midventral keel.


Distribution

The golden shiner is found throughout the eastern half of North America, north to the St Lawrence River, Great Lakes, and Lake Winnipeg, and west to the Dakotas and Texas. Because of its use as bait, it has also been introduced in many places outside this native range.


Habitat

Golden shiners prefer quiet waters and are therefore found in lakes, ponds, sloughs, and ditches. They are sometimes found in the quietest parts of rivers. They like weedy areas. They are fairly tolerant of pollution, turbidity, and low oxygen content. They can also tolerate temperatures as high as , which is unusually high for a North American minnow.


Diet

Golden shiners are
omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...
and
crepuscular In zoology, a crepuscular animal is one that is active primarily during the twilight period, being matutinal, vespertine, or both. This is distinguished from diurnal and nocturnal behavior, where an animal is active during the hours of dayli ...
planktivores. They eat
zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...
,
phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. ...
, microcrustaceans, insects, plants, and algae. They can feed at the surface, in mid-water, or at the bottom. They can locate prey visually, or filter-feed on high-density zooplankton without resorting to visual cues. They are themselves food for all manner of game fish such as
trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...
and
bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...
, hence their popularity as bait fish.


Reproduction

In the southern parts of their range, golden shiners can start reproducing at one year of age; in Canada, first breeding is more commonly at three years of age. Females lay up to 200,000 sticky eggs each amid vegetation. There is no parental care. Occasionally, like a few other minnows, golden shiners can deposit their eggs in the occupied nests of
pumpkinseed The pumpkinseed (''Lepomis gibbosus''), also referred to as pond perch, common sunfish, punkie, sunfish, sunny, and kivver, is a small/medium-sized North American freshwater fish of the genus ''Lepomis'' (true sunfishes), from family Centrarchi ...
,
largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, ...
or
bowfin The bowfin (''Amia calva'') is a bony fish, native to North America. Common names include mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout, and choupique. It is regarded as a relict, being the sole surviving species of the Halecomorp ...
(the latter two can be predators of shiners). This behaviour is called egg dumping and resembles the
brood parasitism Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its ow ...
of birds such as
cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separ ...
s, inasmuch as the shiner eggs will benefit from the parental care that pumpkinseed, largemouth bass, and bowfin provide to the content of their nests. In contrast to parasitism by cuckoos, however, the parent's eggs do not suffer from the presence of parasitic eggs, and may actually benefit from a dilution effect when predators attack the brood.


Behavior

Golden shiners live in large groups (
shoal In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...
s) that roam widely. Several laboratory studies have shown that the movements of a shoal can be determined by a minority of individuals at the front of it. For example, an individual that knows when and where food is available within a large tank can lead many other fish to the right place at the right time of day. If all fish have similar knowledge, there is still a tendency for some individuals to be found always at the front of a moving shoal, possibly because they are intrinsically hungrier and more motivated to find food. Small fish are also found more often at the front of a shoal than larger fish, again possibly because they are more motivated to find food. Like other minnows, golden shiners are sensitive to the release of an alarm substance, or
schreckstoff In 1938, the Austrian ethologist Karl von Frisch made his first report on the existence of the chemical alarm signal known as ''Schreckstoff'' (fright substance) in minnows. An alarm signal is a response produced by an individual, the “sender” ...
, contained within special skin cells. If a predator catches and bites into a minnow, the skin is broken, the substance is released, and other minnows in the vicinity can detect the substance and react to it by leaving the area. The substance can also survive intact in the feces of a predator, and minnows can thus detect the presence of a minnow-eating predator through the presence of its feces. In the laboratory, golden shiners were found to react strongly to water that contained feces from snakes that had eaten other golden shiners, but not nearly as much to water laden with feces from snakes that had eaten green swordtails, a fish that does not possess an alarm substance. Like other fishes, golden shiners have a good daily time sense and can anticipate the arrival of food when this food is made available at the same time of the day or night. They can also do this when there is more than one mealtime a day. This anticipation is expressed as swimming and positioning towards the food source, and other naive individuals can perceive this and join the anticipating fish in the hope of sharing its food. Golden shiners are also capable of
time-place learning Time-place learning (TPL) is the process by which animals link events (e.g. finding food, encountering a predator) with both the location and time of occurrence. It enables them to decide which locations to visit or to avoid based on previous experi ...
(associating different places with different times of day). They can be taught to feed in one part of an aquarium in the morning and a different part in the afternoon; or to feed in one part in the morning, a different part at mid-day, and back to the first part in the afternoon.


Negative effects of environmental toxicants

Researchers have found that long-term exposure of golden shiners to
methylmercury Methylmercury (sometimes methyl mercury) is an organometallic cation with the formula . It is the simplest organomercury compound. Methylmercury is extremely toxic, and its derivatives are the major source of organic mercury for humans. It i ...
can cause disadvantageous effects in the function of the nervous, reproductive, immune, and endocrine systems as well as in behavior. For example, golden shiners exposed to methylmercury showed a decline in reproduction through the inhibition of
hypothalamus The hypothalamus () is a part of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. One of the most important functions is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus ...
,
pituitary In vertebrate anatomy, the pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is an endocrine gland, about the size of a chickpea and weighing, on average, in humans. It is a protrusion off the bottom of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain. The hypoph ...
, and gonadal function. Many fish showed higher concentrations of the chemical in the brain compared to the rest of the body. Fish exposed to high amounts of mercury showed signs of delayed
shoaling In biology, any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling, and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling. In common usage, the terms are sometimes used rather loosely. Ab ...
after exposure to predators. These fish took up to nearly three times longer to return to pre-exposure behaviors compared to other groups exposed to lower amounts of mercury. Studies have also seen relationships between tissue damage and exposure to mercury by examining
macrophage Macrophages (abbreviated as M φ, MΦ or MP) ( el, large eaters, from Greek ''μακρός'' (') = large, ''φαγεῖν'' (') = to eat) are a type of white blood cell of the immune system that engulfs and digests pathogens, such as cancer ce ...
aggregates in different fish tissues. Using
histological Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...
analysis, a positive correlation was seen between the total area of macrophage aggregates and total mercury concentration of muscle tissues in the
spleen The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes .
of both male and female golden shiners.


References

* William F. Sigler and John W. Sigler, ''Fishes of the Great Basin'' (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1987), pp. 188–191. {{Taxonbar, from=Q968614 Golden shiner Fish of Canada Fish of the Eastern United States Fish of the Great Lakes Fauna of the Northeastern United States Fauna of the Plains-Midwest (United States) Freshwater fish of the Southeastern United States Golden shiner Freshwater fish of North America