Fish
Longear Sunfish
Lepomis megalotis · also called longeared sunfish
Wade a clear Ozark creek in June and you will see them hanging over pale gravel patches — small, deep-bodied fish the colour of a tropical reef, turquoise on top and burnt orange below, their faces scribbled with electric blue. The longear sunfish packs more colour into a hand-sized body than almost any fish in North America.
Overview
Lepomis megalotis is a small member of the sunfish family, usually only 8 to 13 cm long. It takes its name from the long black flap trailing off each gill cover, edged in white or pale blue and longest in mature males. It lives in clear, weedy streams, spring runs, and lake edges across the central and eastern US and into Mexico, feeding by day on insects, small crustaceans, and snails.
Colour and courtship
A breeding male is turquoise above and deep orange below, with wavy blue lines radiating across the cheeks like war paint and a red eye. In late spring, males sweep gravel nests in the shallows, often packed close together in loose colonies, and court females with rapid circling and grunting sounds. The male alone guards and fans the eggs and fry.
A fish that needs clean water
The longear is a clear-water specialist. It favours firm bottoms and clean, plant-filled streams and is among the first sunfish to vanish where silt and nutrient runoff cloud the water. Its hardier relatives, the bluegill and green sunfish, tolerate murk far better and often replace it in degraded watersheds.
Status
The longear sunfish is Least Concern, common and widespread. It varies so much in colour and form across its range that several regional populations may prove to be distinct species, and a few of those isolated forms are of local conservation concern.
Longear Sunfish: common questions
Why is it called a longear sunfish?
For the long dark flap that extends backward from the upper edge of each gill cover. All sunfish in the genus Lepomis have an extension of the gill cover, often called the ear or the opercular flap, but in this species it is unusually long, narrow, and flexible, and edged with white or pale blue. It is longest in older breeding males, angled slightly upward, and it flares during courtship and territorial display. The scientific name megalotis is Greek for large ear. The flap is not an ear in any functional sense; the fish hears through inner ear structures and its lateral line.
How colourful is a longear sunfish?
A breeding male is one of the brightest freshwater fish in North America. The back and upper flanks are turquoise to blue-green, the belly and lower flanks are deep orange to red, and the head is covered in wavy, electric-blue lines that run across the cheeks and gill covers like fine cracks in glaze. The eye is often red. Females and non-breeding fish are far more subdued, olive and orange with the blue lines faint. The intensity of the male's colour rises sharply during the nesting season and fades again afterward.
Are longear sunfish good to catch?
They are a favourite of anglers who fish small waters with light gear. Longears are aggressive for their size, readily taking small flies, tiny jigs, worms, and crickets fished near cover, and they fight hard on an ultralight rod or fly rod. What they are not is a food fish in any serious sense, because most weigh only 50 to 150 g and yield very little meat. Many anglers treat them as a catch-and-release quarry valued for their beauty, and micro-fishing enthusiasts seek them out specifically.
Where do longear sunfish live?
In clear, clean, moderately flowing water with plants and a firm gravel or sand bottom. They are most at home in small to medium creeks and rivers, spring runs, and the weedy edges of clear lakes and reservoirs across the central and eastern United States and into north-eastern Mexico. They avoid heavily silted, muddy, or turbid water, which is one reason they have declined in intensively farmed and developed watersheds while their close relatives the bluegill and green sunfish, both more tolerant of murky conditions, have held on or spread.