Blacktip Shiner

Diet and feeding

The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: invertebrates or larval fish. These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.

Reported feeding positions include surface or water-column feeding. The compilation combines published observations; diets can vary with age, locality, and available food.

Habitat preferences

Reported habitat associations include creeks.

The source records associations with clay or silt, sand, gravel, vegetation. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 0.5 years. Its maturity field summarizes mean, median, or modal estimates, usually for females; male estimates can be used when female data are unavailable. It is not a fixed age at which every fish first breeds.

Batch or serial spawning has been reported somewhere in the species’ range. This does not establish the same spawning pattern for every population.

Recorded spawning months are May, Jun, Jul for the source’s reporting region (AL). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.

The reproductive-guild classification includes spawning on open substrates without guarding the brood.

Size and recorded longevity

FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 65 centimetres. Some entries use an estimated asymptotic length; this value should not be treated as a certified record catch.

Recorded longevity in the compilation is 1.5 years. Wild observations were preferred, but captive records were accepted where wild records were unavailable, and unspecified records were assumed wild. The value is not a guaranteed wild lifespan or an aquarium life expectancy.

Identification and appearance

Snelson (1972); Page and Burr (1991); Mettee et al. (1996); a commonly used name is Notropis atrapiculus.

Native range

Apalachicola, Choctawhatchee, Yellow, and Escambia drainages in western Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and Florida panhandle (Page and Burr 1991).

Introduction history

The introduction of the Blacktip Shiner into the Mobile basin of Alabama is the result of artificial diversion of the Conecuh River (Lee et al. 1980 et seq.). All information on the appearance of this species in the Ocmulgee system of Georgia came from Bart et al. (1994). According to those investigators, the species may have been introduced to the upper Ocmulgee system either by stream capture from the Flint River, or by bait bucket release. In any case, because the species is restricted to the river reach above High Falls dam, it was likely introduced after 1904, the year of dam construction. The first record of this species in the Ocmulgee River system (and in the Atlantic Slope) is based on the collection of sixteen specimens taken during the period 1988-1990 from the headwaters of the Towaliga River system, a small western tributary of the Ocmulgee River (Bart et al. 1994).