Comely 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 medium to large rivers, streams and small rivers.

The source records associations with gravel. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1 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 Jun, Jul, Aug for the source’s reporting region (NC). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.

The reproductive-guild classification includes hiding a brood without subsequent guarding.

Size and recorded longevity

FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 11 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 2.5 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.

Native range

Atlantic Slope drainages from Hudson River, New York, to Cape Fear River, North Carolina (Page and Burr 1991).

Introduction history

The occurrence of this species in Seneca Lake, New York, may have resulted from spread via the Chemung Canal (Snelson 1968; Smith 1985). Smith (1985) stated that the presence of this species in the Shawangunk Kill of New York was probably the result of dispersal through the Delaware-Hudson Canal; however, we could find no mention of the Shawangunk Kill, or the possibility of its introduction into that site, in Snelson (1968, 1971). Method of introduction in the Yadkin drainage of North Carolina is unknown; possible bait bucket release.