Logperch
Family:
Percidae (perches) in the order Perciformes (perchlike fish)
Description:
The largest darter in Missouri. Readily separated from other Missouri darters by the following characters: The mouth is overhung by a distinctly conical snout; the color pattern has 15-20 narrow, vertical dark bars on a light background, with the bars alternating in length, with every other bar extending only about to the literal line, while the other alternating bars extend nearly to the belly. Back and sides are pale yellowish-olive with numerous narrow, brown bars; belly is creamy white. There is usually a dusky bar beneath the eye and a small black spot at the base of the tail fin.
Size:
Total length: 4 to 6 inches; maximum about 7 inches.
Habitat and conservation:
Deep riffles and silt-free pools in small- to medium-sized rivers, and along windswept gravel shorelines in reservoirs. Avoids headwater creeks but otherwise occurs in streams of all sizes, achieving its greatest abundance in small- to medium-sized rivers. Avoids streams that are continuously turbid or excessively silty or that lack well-defined gravelly riffles.
Foods:
Midges, small crayfish and small aquatic worms. Uses its distinctive snout to pry up rocks in search of prey. Rocks several times larger than the darter's head are overturned with ease, after which the logperch carefully examines the undersurface of the rock and picks off the small invertebrates exposed.
Distribution in Missouri:
Occur throughout Ozarks and at scattered localities elsewhere. Most abundant along the border between Ozark and Prairie faunal regions. It is also one of the few Missouri darters to persist in impoundments.
Status:
Although this is the largest darter in Missouri, it does not achieve the size of its other perch-family relatives--the walleye, sauger and yellow perch--and is thus not a game fish.
Life cycle:
Lifespan can be 3 or 4 years. Logperch are most active in daytime. Spawning is in April and May. Males gather in loose aggregations of a few to a hundred individuals on clean, gravelly or sandy riffles. Males don't establish territories but rather range over the entire spawning ground. Females congregate in deeper water nearby, entering the aggregations of males only when ready to spawn. 
Shortened URL
mdc.mo.gov/node/4758
