Striped Shiner: Facts & Habitat

About Striped Shiner

The striped shiner (Luxilus chrysocephalus) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. This species is found in eastern North America.

Native and introducedFresh25 states

Description

The striped shiner is a silvery fish with three to four dorsolateral stripes and dark crescents on the sides. The scales and sensory pores on the snout can be outlined in black. Fins are milky to clear in color while the caudal fins have a milky base with a black or gray spot. Males can have pink snouts with areas of red or pink on the rest of the body.

Striped shiners have large, terminal mouths and may grow up to 9 inches (23 cm) in length.

Diet

Striped shiners eat on a wide range of items. Mostly they feed up in the water column on a range of insects including: termites, mayflies, dragonflies, caddisflies, beetles and terrestrial midges. They also feed on the bottom materials like algae. They feed continuously day and night but feed more on the bottom at night.

Habitat

These shiners can be found in the mid to upper regions of streams and rivers. They can also be found in rocky pools in clear and turbid creeks.

Distribution

They can be found in the Gulf Coast drainages from Texas to Alabama and upwards to Tennessee. Striped shiners can be found in the Great Lakes, New York and Wisconsin.

Reproduction

The breeding season of striped shiners occurs from March to July but can extend into October. During this time male and female colours change from silver to gold and all fins change to orange with the exception of their tail, They spawn in shallow waters over gravelly bottom streams with depressions and over other fishes nests. The males make the depressions by pushing the gravel out with their nose or picking up pieces with their mouths. Males are aggressive towards other males and may bite or attack them with the breeding tubercles they develop on the head and body. The males swim down and tilt to the side while the females swim up alongside the males. The males then swing their caudal peduncle onto the females back. This posture lasts for several seconds but may be interrupted by other aggressive males.

Etymology

Luxilus is derived from lux meaning "light"and illus meaning"little"while chrysocephalus means"golden head".

Article text: Wikipedia contributors, Striped shiner (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.

Diet and feeding

The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: algae or phytoplankton; aquatic or other vascular plants; detritus or unidentified plant material; invertebrates or larval fish; larger animal prey (a source category covering fish, crayfish, crabs, or frogs); fish or frog eggs. 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 medium to large rivers, 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 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, Aug, Sep, Oct for the source’s reporting region (MS). 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 18 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 6 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.

Range

Where it lives

21.2%of mapped records

Share of 19,438 GBIF observation records with a state location, across 25 states. The orange dots are USGS stream-survey sites where this species was caught.

A blank area on the dot layer usually means nobody sampled there, not that the fish is absent. Turn on “every survey site” to see where the survey looked.

The USGS stream survey caught it at 4,942 of its sites, in 21 states. That survey and the GBIF records are two different counts of two different things, so the site keeps them apart.

Habitat

Water and movement

Water: WoRMS records this species in fresh water.
USGS NAS habitat: Freshwater
US status: Native transplant — native to part of the United States, moved to other waters inside it.
Migration: Undetermined

Classification

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Superclass: Actinopterygii
Class: Teleostei
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Leuciscidae
Genus: Luxilus
Species: Luxilus chrysocephalus
ITIS TSN: 163832
WoRMS AphiaID: 1016147
GBIF key: 2366993
Outside the US: ITIS also files it in Canada.

Common questions about Striped Shiner

What is the scientific name of Striped Shiner?

The scientific name is Luxilus chrysocephalus, in the family Leuciscidae. Classification follows ITIS.

Does Striped Shiner live in fresh water or salt water?

WoRMS records this species in fresh water.

Where has Striped Shiner been recorded in the United States?

GBIF has observations in 25 states, with the most records in Alabama, Ohio, Kentucky. The map shows observation records, which do not establish the complete natural range.

Closest relatives