#24/179:
Green Sunfish
Lepomis cyanellus
Captured 10/20/20, Looking Glass River, MI near DeWitt, MI. Method: Electrofishing. Watershed: Lake Michigan (Grand R. watershed)
Notes: Green Sunfish are really enigmatic to me. I caught TONS on the Looking Glass and TONS on the Red Cedar. But they're all small! Where are the big ones? I don't know. Sunfish are often hard to separate. Green Sunfish have mouths that extend back about halfway through the eye, blue lightning through their cheek, and an 'ear' (opercular flap) that is oval and sometimes rimmed in orange, red, or white. If you look at the dorsal fin, the spiny dorsal is just slightly shorter than the soft. Most individuals are colored more plainly than this one (see individual below), but some individuals have blue speckles on their flank. The specimen above had lots of orange through its fins, which I hadn't seen before as most of the ones I've caught looked like the one below.
Notes: Green Sunfish are really enigmatic to me. I caught TONS on the Looking Glass and TONS on the Red Cedar. But they're all small! Where are the big ones? I don't know. Sunfish are often hard to separate. Green Sunfish have mouths that extend back about halfway through the eye, blue lightning through their cheek, and an 'ear' (opercular flap) that is oval and sometimes rimmed in orange, red, or white. If you look at the dorsal fin, the spiny dorsal is just slightly shorter than the soft. Most individuals are colored more plainly than this one (see individual below), but some individuals have blue speckles on their flank. The specimen above had lots of orange through its fins, which I hadn't seen before as most of the ones I've caught looked like the one below.
