Quillback carpsuckers are critically imperiled in Vermont; imperiled in New York and Michigan; vulnerable in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina. Populations seem to be stable in Wyoming, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ontario, Iowa, Illinois, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Manitoba and the District of Columbia. Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota and North Dakota have not ranked Carpiodes cyprinus.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
Mortality is high among eggs, fry and young fish because they provide forage for predatory fish. An anti-predator adaptation is the production of several thousand eggs per breeding season to ensure the survival of some offspring. Adult quillbacks are usually not preyed upon due to their size and their schooling behavior.
Quillback carpsuckers have a deeply compressed body giving them a flattened appearance when viewed from the side. They have large silvery scales and greater than or equal to 37 lateral line scales. Silver scales give them a silver coloration from the side fading to a dark color dorsally. Quillback carpsuckers are distinguished from other carpsuckers by their long first dorsal ray which does not extend beyond the posterior base of the dorsal fin. The first dorsal fin is up to five times longer than the posterior dorsal rays, total number of dorsal rays is usually greater than 28. They have an average of seven anal rays. They have a typical sucker mouth and, when viewed from the side, the back of the mouth does not extend past the anterior portion of the eye. Quillback carpsuckers have a deeply forked caudal fin.
The largest recorded quillback carpsucker was caught in Nebraska on the Missouri River by Patrick Fox Jr. on June 3, 2001, weighing 6.18 kg (13 lbs. 10 oz.) and measuring 71.2 cm (28 inches) in length.
Range mass: 6.18 (high) kg.
Range length: 71.2 (high) cm.
Average length: 66 cm.
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; heterothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike
Mortality is high among the eggs, fry and young fish because they provide forage for predatory fish. Among adult quillback carpsuckers mortality is 60 to 70 percent annually.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 11 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 11 years.
Quillback carpsuckers prefer to live in highly productive streams that are moderately deep and clear. Quillback carpsuckers prefer clear water over highly turbid waters, unlike other carpsuckers, but are highly adaptable to slow moving streams. They are also found in lakes (and their tributaries) including the Great Lakes.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; freshwater
Aquatic Biomes: benthic ; lakes and ponds; rivers and streams
Quillback carpsuckers are found throughout much of eastern North America as far north as Saskatchewan, south to Florida and as far west as South Dakota, Kansas and Alabama.
Quillback carpsuckers have also been introduced in Mexico where they have established a reproducing population.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Introduced , Native )
Quillback carpsuckers prefer to feed on the bottoms of lakes, rivers and streams; specifically they prefer clear, bottom water. They seek aquatic insect larvae and other small organisms such as mollusks, fingernail clams and aquatic vegetation.
Animal Foods: insects; mollusks; aquatic crustaceans
Plant Foods: leaves; algae
Primary Diet: omnivore
Quillback carpsuckers are bottom feeders and, like other bottom feeders, they help to keep their ecosystem clean by feeding on bottom matter.
Ecosystem Impact: biodegradation
Quillback carpsuckers are a minor commercial fish in the United States with little or no economic benefit to fishermen. Quillback carpsuckers introduced to Mexico however provide an important economic benefit to the northeastern portion of that country.
Positive Impacts: food
This species has no known negative economic effects on humans.
Quillback carpsuckers are open substrate spawners and hatch from an unguarded spawning area where eggs are released by the female and fertilized by the male (or males). Once eggs are fertilized they take 8-12 days to hatch.
Growth averages 7 to 9 cm (3 to 4 inches) per year in the younger ages to about 2 to 4 cm (1 to 1 1/2) inches each year for older specimens. A six year-old quillback carpsucker would be about 31 cm (12 inches) in length and weigh slightly over 450 g (one pound). Quillback carpsuckers are a long-lived species, with fish as old as 11 years found in populations.
Quillback carpsuckers use visual and tactile cues to perceive their environment, as do most other fish. Little else is known about perception or intraspecific communication.
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; chemical
Male and female quillback carpsuckers make a run, or migration, to their spawning areas where they release eggs and sperm in shallow water over gravelly riffles, sand or mud.
Mating System: polygynandrous (promiscuous)
Female quillback carpsuckers release several hundred thousand eggs which are scattered haphazardly in shallow water. An average of 64,000 eggs are produced by six year old-female quillbacks (Mayhew 1987). Quillbacks achieve independence almost immediately after hatching.
Breeding interval: Quillback carpsuckers breed once yearly.
Breeding season: Quillback carpsuckers breed in the spring-summer months depending on water temperature. The ideal water temperature for breeding is 7-18 degrees Celsius.
Average number of offspring: 64,000.
Range gestation period: 8 to 12 days.
Range time to independence: 8 to 12 days.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; fertilization (External ); broadcast (group) spawning; oviparous
Female quillbacks have a pre-fertilization investment similar to other open substrate non-guarding fishes. Females begin developing eggs internally long before hatch which requires energy. Pre-fertilization investment of males is much less than that of females. Neither sex has any apparent parental involvement after fertilization. The eggs are not guarded and they are left to develop and hatch on their own.
Parental Investment: pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female)
The quillback (Carpiodes cyprinus), also known as the quillback carpsucker, is a type of freshwater fish of the sucker family widely distributed throughout North America.[2] It is deeper-bodied than most suckers, leading to a carplike appearance. However, the quillback is not a carp. It can be distinguished from carp by the lack of barbels around the mouth. The quillback is long-lived,[3] with age up to 30 years,[4] 44 years,[5] and 52 years[6] documented across different studies.
The quillback is a medium-sized, deep-bodied fish found throughout North America. It has a small head, humped back and deeply forked caudal fin. The compressed body of the quillback makes it look flattened when viewed from the side.[7] The quillback has a subterminal mouth with no barbels, and no nipple-like protrusions on the bottom lip. It has large, reflective, silver cycloid scales that are responsible for giving the quillback its characteristic silver color. They have a white belly with yellow or orange lower fins. The tail and dorsal fin are usually gray or silver. The quillback gets its name from the long quill that is formed via the first several fin rays of the dorsal fin. Quillback are typically 15–20 inches on average, weighing between 1 and 4 pounds. However, they can grow up to 26 inches and weigh 10 pounds. The quillback has a nearly straight, hyper-sensitive lateral line, composed of at least 37 lateral line scales. This helps the fish locate predators and prey.
The quillback is found throughout much of North America, from Saskatchewan to Florida, and from South Dakota to Alabama. The quillback occupies temperate, freshwater habitats. This includes many streams, lakes, channels and rivers. They prefer water that is clear, slow moving, highly productive and moderately deep. The quillback can commonly be found in the Hudson Bay, the Mississippi River basin, the Great Lakes, and drainages from the Delaware, Apalachicola, and Pearl rivers.[8] They often comprise a large portion of the biomass of warmwater rivers, but they are very difficult to catch with traditional American angling methods.[9] The quillback carpsucker is closely related to the highfin carpsucker and the river carpsucker. All three species are rarely caught by anglers due to their feeding habits, but they have been caught occasionally on worms, minnows, and artificial lures.
Quillbacks usually feed in schools. They are omnivores and bottom feeders that prefer lakes, rivers and streams in which the water is clear at the bottom. The school of quillbacks move slowly over a sand or gravel bottom when they eat. Their typical diet consists of insect larvae, crustaceans, molluscs, protozoa and various aquatic vegetation, including algae and leaves.
The quillback is a slow-paced and long-lived freshwater fish species that belongs to a subfamily (Ictiobinae) for which extremely long-lived fishes are becoming known.[3][5][10][11] A study of a Minnesota population found that they may reach sexual maturity by age 8–9 years, live several decades at adult size, recruit more sporadically than previously realized, and attain longevity in excess of 40 years.[5] The study also documented accrual of age-spot pigmentation after 30 years,[5] similar to their larger-bodied cousins, the bigmouth buffalo.[3]
The quillback reproduces once yearly, typically in late spring or early summer. The timing of reproduction depends on the water temperature. Ideal temperatures for reproduction are between 7–18 degrees Celsius. Spawning occurs upstream of the typical quillback habitat, and they migrate in schools to the spawning site. The female quillback produces between 15,000 and 60,000 eggs, and scatters them in shallow water over a sandy or mud bottom.[12] Fertilization then happens externally, and the eggs are left in quiet water. Since the quillback is oviparous, the eggs are hatched outside of the fish's body. The quillback possesses a polygynandrous mating system, meaning that two or more males have an exclusive sexual relationship with two or more females. The numbers of each sex can vary, and do not need to be equal.
The quillback is currently at risk for extinction in various states throughout the continental United States including Vermont, New York and Michigan. Other places prove vulnerability to the species including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina. Unmanaged and unregulated modern bowfishing also poses a threat to this species across their USA range, including in Minnesota.[5] Quillbacks benefit the ecosystem they reside in because they are bottom feeders. Bottom feeders help keep their natural environment clean by feeding on the material at the bottom of the habitat. The quillback has an economic benefit to Mexico. The IGFA world record for the species stands at 8lb 1oz taken from Lake Manitoba in Canada in 2016.[13]
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) {{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) The quillback (Carpiodes cyprinus), also known as the quillback carpsucker, is a type of freshwater fish of the sucker family widely distributed throughout North America. It is deeper-bodied than most suckers, leading to a carplike appearance. However, the quillback is not a carp. It can be distinguished from carp by the lack of barbels around the mouth. The quillback is long-lived, with age up to 30 years, 44 years, and 52 years documented across different studies.
