Article text: Wikipedia contributors, Cyprinella trichroistia (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
Tricolor Shiner
Cyprinella trichroistia
Leuciscidae · freshwater water fish
2 minute read · Species guide

About Tricolor Shiner
The tricolor shiner (Cyprinella trichroistia) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish in the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. This fish is endemic to the United States where it occurs in the Alabama River drainage in Alabama, northwestern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee.
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.
The source records associations with sand, gravel, cobble, 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.
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 for the source’s reporting region (AL). 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 10 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 3.5 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.
Range
Where it lives
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.
Share of records by state
The USGS stream survey caught it at 43 of its sites, in 3 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.
- Migration
- Undetermined
Classification
Taxonomy
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Superclass
- Actinopterygii
- Class
- Teleostei
- Order
- Cypriniformes
- Family
- Leuciscidae
- Genus
- Cyprinella
- Species
- Cyprinella trichroistia
- ITIS TSN
- 163806
- WoRMS AphiaID
- 1020135
- GBIF key
- 5207651
Common questions about Tricolor Shiner
What is the scientific name of Tricolor Shiner?
Does Tricolor Shiner live in fresh water or salt water?
Where has Tricolor Shiner been recorded in the United States?
Closest relatives
Other Cyprinella species
Same family