Fishes
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Species Types
Scientific Name
Noturus flavus
Description
The stonecat is the most common madtom in the large streams in the northern Ozarks and Prairie region. Its body and fins are nearly plain, its upper jaw projects beyond the lower jaw, and its lower lip and chin lack dark pigment.
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Scientific Name
Etheostoma, Percina, Ammocrypta, and Crystallaria spp.
Description
Darters have been described as the hummingbirds of the fish world: colorful, small, and quick. Missouri has about 44 different types of darters. They are most diverse in the fast, clear, rocky streams of the Ozarks.
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Scientific Name
Acipenser fulvescens
Description
The lake sturgeon is Missouri’s largest sturgeon and is rare and endangered in our state. Note its conical (not shovel-nosed) snout. Despite its name, in Missouri this fish is almost always found in big rivers, not lakes.
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Scientific Name
Lepisosteus platostomus
Description
The shortnose gar is named for its relatively short, broad snout. Like other gars, it's a long, cylindrical fish with a long snout and numerous prominent teeth. The body is covered with hard, diamond-shaped scales.
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Scientific Name
Scaphirhynchus albus
Description
The pallid sturgeon is federally and state endangered. This rarely found but widely distributed bottom dweller lives mostly in the Missouri and lower Mississippi rivers.
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Scientific Name
Platygobio gracilis
Description
The flathead chub is a slender, silvery minnow with small eyes, sickle-shaped pectoral fins, and wedge-shaped head with a pointed snout. Native to Missouri's big rivers and their tributaries, it is now state endangered.
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Scientific Name
Notemigonus crysoleucas
Description
The golden shiner is a deep-bodied minnow with a greenish-olive back and a faint dusky stripe along the midline. It has a fleshy keel along the midline of the belly. It is widespread in Missouri.
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Scientific Name
Ichthyomyzon castaneus
Description
The chestnut lamprey is an eel-like fish that many people find interesting because it's a vampire to other fish. Adults have a well-developed, rasplike oral disc, seven porelike gill openings, no paired fins, and a single nostril.
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Scientific Name
Dorosoma cepedianum
Description
The gizzard shad is one of the most common and abundant fish in Missouri. In Missouri, this schooling fish occurs in every major stream system and is most abundant in reservoirs and large rivers.
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Scientific Name
Dorosoma petenense
Description
The threadfin shad occurs in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It also occurs in mainstem reservoirs of the White River Basin and in Montrose Lake and the South Grand River in Henry County.
See Also
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Scientific Name
Amphiuma tridactylum
Description
The three-toed amphiuma is an eel-like, completely aquatic salamander. It has very small forelimbs and hind limbs, each with three tiny toes. In Missouri it’s found only in the Bootheel region.
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Scientific Name
Siren intermedia nettingi
Description
The western lesser siren is an eel-like, aquatic salamander with external gills, small eyes, small forelimbs with four toes, and no hind limbs. In Missouri, it’s found mostly in the Bootheel and northward in counties near the Mississippi River.
About Fishes in Missouri
Missouri has more than 200 kinds of fish, more than are found in most neighboring states. Fishes live in water, breathe with gills, and have fins instead of legs. Most are covered with scales. Most fish in Missouri “look” like fish and could never be confused with anything else. True, lampreys and eels have snakelike bodies — but they also have fins and smooth, slimy skin, which snakes do not.