Page 104 - A Field Guide to Fairfax County's Plants and Wildlife
P. 104
te Sucker
(Catostomus commersoni)
Description
This stout-bodied
fish can grow to 51
centimeters long.
Its blunt snout
and downturned mouth are adapted for sucking, which helps it to slurp up
small animals near the stream bottom. The adult is dark olive or black on
top with greenish yellow to silvery white sides. Its lower fins are yellowish or
orangeish. The young are generally brown with dark blotches on the sides.
Males are mature at two years, while females are mature at three years. They
breed in early spring. Eggs are laid on the stream bottom in an area swept
clean of debris. The parents do not care for the eggs or young. White suckers
can live up to 12 years.
The hatchling’s diet changes as Distribution and Habitat
its mouth develops from pointing
forward for the first ten days to It lives in all five physiographic
pointing downward over the next provinces. This fish often lives in
several days. It switches from eating clear, cool creeks, but it can live in
plankton at the water surface to many places from small headwater
eating more insects on the stream streams to large lakes. It may
bottom. migrate into smaller headwater
streams in the spring.
White Suckers can be seen feeding
during the day or night, but they Role in Food Web
more commonly eat at night. The
adults and young fish often let their The White Sucker feeds
meals come to them. They will eat opportunistically on what it can
food items that are carried toward find. It eats insect larvae and
them in flowing water. pupae, detritus, small crustaceans,
other benthic invertebrates and
phytoplankton. Birds, fishes,
lampreys and mammals eat White
Suckers.
r 100 r
(Catostomus commersoni)
Description
This stout-bodied
fish can grow to 51
centimeters long.
Its blunt snout
and downturned mouth are adapted for sucking, which helps it to slurp up
small animals near the stream bottom. The adult is dark olive or black on
top with greenish yellow to silvery white sides. Its lower fins are yellowish or
orangeish. The young are generally brown with dark blotches on the sides.
Males are mature at two years, while females are mature at three years. They
breed in early spring. Eggs are laid on the stream bottom in an area swept
clean of debris. The parents do not care for the eggs or young. White suckers
can live up to 12 years.
The hatchling’s diet changes as Distribution and Habitat
its mouth develops from pointing
forward for the first ten days to It lives in all five physiographic
pointing downward over the next provinces. This fish often lives in
several days. It switches from eating clear, cool creeks, but it can live in
plankton at the water surface to many places from small headwater
eating more insects on the stream streams to large lakes. It may
bottom. migrate into smaller headwater
streams in the spring.
White Suckers can be seen feeding
during the day or night, but they Role in Food Web
more commonly eat at night. The
adults and young fish often let their The White Sucker feeds
meals come to them. They will eat opportunistically on what it can
food items that are carried toward find. It eats insect larvae and
them in flowing water. pupae, detritus, small crustaceans,
other benthic invertebrates and
phytoplankton. Birds, fishes,
lampreys and mammals eat White
Suckers.
r 100 r
