Shoshone Sculpin

Diet and feeding

The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: invertebrates or larval fish; larger animal prey (a source category covering fish, crayfish, crabs, or frogs). These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.

Reported feeding positions include bottom 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 gravel, cobble. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 2 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 May, Jun, Jul for the source’s reporting region (ID). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.

The reproductive-guild classification includes guarding eggs or young at a spawning substrate or nest.

Size and recorded longevity

FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 9 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 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

Rocky springs and their effluents in Hagerman Valley in the Snake River drainage, Idaho (Wallace et al. 1984; Page and Burr 1991; Kuda and Griffith 1993).

Habitat and ecology

Shoshone Sculpin is a small, short-lived cottid, generally living up to 3 years. Generally found in cool, well-oxygenated, low velocity waters with abundant benthic structuure and aquatic vegetation in the Thousand Springs formation. Diet of this species generally consists of plankton and aquatic insects (Griffith and Daley 1984).

Introduction history

Stocked for conservation purposes in an attempt to expand this species' very limited range. The Shoshone Sculpin's native habitat was under immediate threat due to water diversion for irrigation and development of springs for commercial trout production (Simpson and Wallace 1978).

Ecological impacts

Kuda and Griffith (1993) suggested that C. greenei displaced native mottled sculpin C. bairdii, causing the latter species to move from aquatic vegetation and low water velocity areas into sites with more moderate current.