Culaea inconstans, Brook stickleback : aquarium, bait

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Culaea inconstans (Kirtland, 1840)

Brook stickleback
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Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | Catalog of Fishes(genus, species) | ITIS | CoL | WoRMS | Cloffa

Teleostei (teleosts) > Perciformes/Gasterosteoidei (Sticklebacks) > Gasterosteidae (Sticklebacks and tubesnouts)
Etymology: Culaea: Coined from the name "Eucalia"; Greek, = good nest (Ref. 45335);  inconstans: inconstans meaning variable (Ref. 1998).

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Freshwater; demersal; pH range: 7.0 - ? ; dH range: ? - 15; depth range 0 - 55 m (Ref. 1998). Temperate; 4°C - 18°C (Ref. 2059); 69°N - 34°N

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Point map | Introductions | Faunafri

North America: Nova Scotia to Northwest Territories and eastern British Columbia in Canada; Great Lakes-Mississippi River basins south to southern Ohio and Nebraska in USA and west to Montana, USA. Isolated population in Canadian River system in northeastern New Mexico, USA. Introduced elsewhere (Ref. 5723). Introduced in upper Inn drainage in Bavaria, Germany and accidentally in the 1960’s with Micropterus to southern Finland where it has established a population in Lake Lohjanjarvi (Ref. 59043).

Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm
Max length : 8.7 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 5723); common length : 5.0 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 12193); max. reported age: 2.00 years (Ref. 12193)

Short description Morphology | Morphometrics

Diagnosed from other species of Gasterosteidae in Europe by combination of the following characters: 4-6 short dorsal spines, never inclined to the left or to the right; without keel on side of caudal peduncle; anal fin origin slightly behind dorsal fin origin; body dark olive green (getting blackish in breeding males), with numerous pale spots or undulating bars on flank (Ref. 59043).

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

Adults inhabit cool, vegetated, sand or mud bottoms of lakes and ponds. Also in pools and backwaters of creeks and small rivers (Ref. 1998, 10294). Rarely found in brackish water. Feed on crustacean and insect larvae, eggs and larvae of fishes, snails, oligochaetes and algae (Ref. 1998, 10294). Preyed upon by kingfishers, herons, and mergansers and occasionally by fishes like Salvelinus fontinalis and Esox lucius (Ref. 1998). Males build, guard and aerate the nest where the eggs are deposited (Ref. 205).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Males arrive first in shallow waters, establish their territories, and build small nests near the bottom. The male then entices the female to the nest and by prodding her ventral and caudal peduncle area, forces her to release her eggs into the nest. The male then drives the female away, fertilizes the eggs and guards his territory until the young hatch and swim away. Males may build two nests during a breeding season and more than one female may deposit eggs in each nest (Ref. 1998). Eggs hatch in 8-9 days (Ref. 59043).

Main reference Upload your references | References | Coordinator | Collaborators

Page, L.M. and B.M. Burr, 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 432 p. (Ref. 5723)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435)

  Least Concern (LC) ; Date assessed: 15 November 2011

CITES

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Harmless





Human uses

Aquarium: commercial; bait: occasionally
FAO - Publication: search | FishSource |

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Common names
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Internet sources

AFORO (otoliths) | Alien/Invasive Species database | Aquatic Commons | BHL | Cloffa | BOLDSystems | Websites from users | Check FishWatcher | CISTI | Catalog of Fishes: genus, species | DiscoverLife | ECOTOX | FAO - Publication: search | Faunafri | Fishipedia | Fishtrace | GenBank: genome, nucleotide | GloBI | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | IGFA World Record | MitoFish | Otolith Atlas of Taiwan Fishes | PubMed | Reef Life Survey | Socotra Atlas | Tree of Life | Wikipedia: Go, Search | World Records Freshwater Fishing | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82804):  PD50 = 1.0000   [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Bayesian length-weight: a=0.01047 (0.00408 - 0.02689), b=3.07 (2.85 - 3.29), in cm total length, based on LWR estimates for this (Sub)family-body shape (Ref. 93245).
Trophic level (Ref. 69278):  3.2   ±0.1 se; based on diet studies.
Resilience (Ref. 120179):  High, minimum population doubling time less than 15 months (tmax=2).
Fishing Vulnerability (Ref. 59153):  Low vulnerability (10 of 100).