Studies on the Biology of Some Percid Fishes from Western Pennsylvania

TLDR: This study has attempted to make known several of the main features of the life history of three species of darters, mainly by scale analysis, which are quite common in the upper Allegheny River system of western Pennsylvania.

Abstract: Within recent years considerable work has been concentrated upon the study of the life histories of our larger percid fishes that provide both sport and food for man. The life histories of most of our smaller Percidae, the darters, are still not completely known. Several studies have revealed some of their spawning habits, such as those of Adams and Hankinson (1928), Atz (1940), Hankinson (1932), Jaffa (1917), Lake (1936), J. J. Petravicz (1936), W. P. Petravicz (1938), Reeves (1907), Reighard (1913) and Seal (1892). In this study we have attempted to make known several of the main features of the life history of three species of darters, mainly by scale analysis. These species, the variegated darter, Poecilichthys variatus (Kirtland), the eastern banded darter, Poecilichthys zonalis zonalis Cope, and the northern grecnside darter, Etieostoma blennoides blennoides Rafinesque, are quite common in the upper Allegheny River system of western Pennsylvania. Their ranges are given by Hubbs and Black (1940: 7) and Hubbs and Lagler (1947: 88, 89). These darters have remained in such obscurity that even brief generalizations of their life histories are not available. Such discussions of blennoides by Evermann and Clark (1920: 440-442, colored plate) and Forbes and Richardson (1920: 292-294, colored plate) and of zonalis by Forbes and Richardson (1920: 304306, fig. 73) are mainly descriptional. Their habitat and associates, abundance and density, sexual dimorphism, sex ratio, longevity and comparative rates of growth are discussed and tabulated, herein.