Fishes
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Species Types
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
Channa argus and other Channa and Parachanna spp.
Description
Snakeheads are native to Asia and invasive in America. They resemble bowfins and can live in similar habitats. Note the extended anal fin and the pelvic fins located close to the pectoral fins and gills.
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Scientific Name
Lepisosteus oculatus
Description
The spotted gar has many well-defined roundish black spots on top of the head and on the paired fins. 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
Morone saxatilis
Description
Primarily a marine species native to the Atlantic Coast of North America, the striped bass has been successfully stocked into several reservoirs in the United States. A silvery, elongated fish with prominent dark, horizontal stripes along the sides.
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Scientific Name
Atractosteus spatula (formerly Lepisosteus spatula)
Description
The alligator gar is Missouri's largest gar and has a distinctively short, broad snout. Populations are declining. This fish once occurred in the Mississippi River at least as far upstream as the mouth of the Illinois River and in major tributaries.
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Scientific Name
Ictiobus bulbalus
Description
The smallmouth buffalo is nearly as common and widespread in Missouri as the bigmouth buffalo. Identify it by its small, nearly horizontal mouth and the strongly keeled forward part of its back.
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Scientific Name
Ictiobus niger
Description
Compared to Missouri’s other buffalofishes, the black buffalo is less abundant and widespread, and of the three, it occurs most often in places with strong currents.
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Scientific Name
Notropis, Cyprinella, Hybognathus, Luxilus, and others
Description
Minnows — including shiners, chubs, stonerollers, dace, and carp — are members of the minnow family, the Cyprinidae. It is the largest of all fish families, and Missouri has about 70 species.
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Scientific Name
Polyodon spathula
Description
Like a small shark, the paddlefish nearly lacks scales and has a cartilaginous skeleton; like a baleen whale, it filters its dinner from the water. But no other fish alive today has a paddle for a snout.
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Scientific Name
Ictalurus punctatus
Description
The channel catfish is the official Missouri state fish. It is pale with dark spots and is found statewide in a variety of habitats, preferring large, rather turbid streams with low or moderate gradients.
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.