Crescent Shiner

Diet and feeding

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

Reported feeding positions include bottom feeding and 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 streams and small rivers, creeks.

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

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1.5 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.

Recorded spawning months are Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul for the source’s reporting region (VA). 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 4 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

Gilbert (1964); Page and Burr (1991); Jenkins and Burkhead (1994); another commonly used name is Notropis cerasinus.

Native range

Upper and middle Roanoke (and adjacent tributaries of Meherrin River-Chowan River system), and New River drainage, Virginia and North Carolina (Page and Burr 1991).

Introduction history

Probable bait bucket release in Virginia, possible bait bucket release (or a natural stream capture) in North Carolina. The earliest record for Virginia was from 1965 in the Jennings Creek system of the middle James River drainage (Jenkins and Burkhead 1994). Abbott et al. (1977) stated that the presence of this species in Holiday Creek (Appomattox drainage) probably resulted from a bait bucket release into Holiday Lake, a recreational impoundment.