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NAS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species |
Common Name: smallmouth buffalo
Identification: Becker (1983); Hubbs et al. (1991); Page and Burr (1991); Etnier and Starnes (1993).
Size: 78 cm.
Native Range:
Lake Michigan drainage and Mississippi River basin from Pennsylvania and Michigan to Montana and south to Gulf of Mexico; Gulf Slope drainages from Mobile Bay, Alabama, to Rio Grande, Texas and New Mexico. Also in Mexico (Page and Burr 1991).
Nonindigenous Occurrences: Smallmouth buffalo were stocked in Canyon, Saguaro, and Apache lakes in Arizona (Minckley 1973). They were introduced to unspecified area(s) of California (Hubbs et al. 1979). They were probably introduced into the Yadkin, Catawba, and Neuse drainages of North Carolina (Hocutt et al. 1986; Menhinick 1991), and to the Yadkin and Santee drainages in South Carolina (Hocutt et al. 1986; Rohde et al. 1994). Specimens have been taken from the Big Lake and Island Lake region in Vilas County, Wisconsin (Becker 1963).
Means of Introduction: Accidental introduction in Arizona in 1918 with bigmouth buffalo I. cyprinellus (Minckley 1973; Rinne 1995); unknown means in California, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Stocked in Wisconsin during fish rescue operations from the Mississippi River in the 1930s (Becker 1983).
Status: Unknown in most sites in Arizona. Established in Apache Lake, Arizona, and in North and South Carolina. Extirpated in California. Unknown in Wisconsin; still present in the 1960s (Becker 1983).
Impact of Introduction: Unknown.
Remarks: In the early 1900s all three species of buffalofishes were stocked; I. bubalus, I. cyprinellus, and I. velifer (Leach 1921, 1923). However, when the stockings were reported they were lumped together as "buffalofish" and it is not possible to determine which species were planted. Stocking of buffalofishes occurred outside their native ranges in Lake Erie in Ohio, the Pee Dee and Catawba drainages in North Carolina, and in unknown locations in Massachusetts (Leach 1921, 1923).
Becker, G. C. 1983. Fishes of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Etnier, D. A., and W. C. Starnes. 1993. The fishes of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Hocutt, C. H., R. E. Jenkins, and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. 1986. Zoogeography of the fishes of the central Appalachians and central Atlantic Coastal Plain. Pages 161--212 in C. H. Hocutt, and E. O. Wiley, editors. The Zoogeography of North American Freshwater Fishes. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
Hubbs, C., R. J. Edwards, and G. P. Garrett. 1991. An annotated checklist of freshwater fishes of Texas, with key to identification of species. Texas Journal of Science, Supplement 43(4):1--56.
Hubbs, C. L., W. I. Follett, and L. J. Dempster. 1979. List of the fishes of California. California Academy Science Occasional Papers 133. 51 pp.
Menhinick, E. F. 1991. The freshwater fishes of North Carolina. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. 227 pp.
Minckley, W. L. 1973. Fishes of Arizona. Arizona Fish and Game Department. Sims Printing Company, Inc., Phoenix, AZ.
Page, L. M., and B. M. Burr. 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. The Peterson Field Guide Series, volume 42. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.
Rhode, F. C., R. G. Arndt, D. G. Lindquist, and J. F. Parnell. 1994. Freshwater Fishes of the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. University of Carolina Press, Chappel Hill, NC. 222 pp.
Rinne, J. N. 1994. The effects of introduced fishes on native fishes: Arizona, southwestern United States. World fisheries congress, May 1992, Athens, Greece.
Other Resources:
FishBase Fact Sheet
Author: Pam Fuller
Revision Date: 4/18/2006 Citation for this information:
Pam Fuller. 2009. Ictiobus bubalus. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL.
<http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=361> Revision Date: 4/18/2006
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