Texas Shiner, Notropis amabilis
Texas Shiner, Notropis amabilis. Fish caught from Río Salado, Coahuila, August 2014. Length: 6.0 cm (2.4 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Eli (obsessiveangling.wordpress.com).
Texas Shiner, Notropis amabilis. Fish caught from the Guadalupe River, New Braunfels, Texas, June 2021. Length: 6.0 cm (2.4 inches). Catch, photograph and identification courtesy of Luke Ovgard, Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Texas Shiner, Notropis amabilis. Fish caught from the Devil River, Del Rio, Texas, March 2022. Length: 6.1 cm (3.1 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Chris Moore, Peoria, Arizona.
The Texas Shiner, Notropis amabilis, is a member of the Carp and Minnow or Cyprinidae Family, and is known in Mexico as carpa texana. Globally, there are eighty-eight species in the genus Notropis, of which fifteen are widespread throughout Mexico’s freshwater systems.
The Texas Shiner has a deep laterally compressed fusiform body that is deepest midway between the pectoral and pelvic fins. They are an overall olive-green dorsally with prominent darkly outlined scales transitioning to silvery-white ventrally. They have a distinct dark horizontal line that is darkest at the rear that extends from the head to the caudal base that is bordered above by a clear stripe. Their fins are transparent. They have black lips. Their head is large and elongated with a pointed snout with large eyes that are wider than the snout and a large terminal oblique mouth that has thin lower lips without fleshy lobes and a protractile mouth. Their anal fin has 3 spines and 8 to 11 rays; their caudal peduncle is wide; their caudal fin is concave with wide rounded equal sized lobes; their dorsal fin has 3 spines and 7 or 8 rays and triangular in shape with a broad base, their pectoral fins have 1 spine and 12 to 16 rays and are large; and, their pelvic fins have 1 spine and 7 rays and are small. They have 8 or 9 gill rakers on the first arch. They are covered with large scales. Their lateral line is straight and complete.
The Texas Shiner is a freshwater benthopelagic schooling species that is found in streams with moderately fast currents with clear waters over gravel, rubble and sand substrate and in pools. They are intolerant of high salinity. They reach a maximum of 7.0 cm (2.8 inches) in length. They consume aquatic insects, algae, terrestrial insects and detritus. Reproduction occurs in small groups with broadcast spawning with early maturation, long spawning seasons and multiple batches with clutch sizes of 102 to 286. They have life spans of two years. The Texas Shiner is poorly studied with very limited information available about their lifestyle and behavioral patterns including specific details on age, growth, longevity, movement patterns, diet, habitat use, and reproduction.
The Texas Shiner is native to the freshwater systems of northeastern mainland Mexico being limited to the Atlantic slope of the Río Salado and Río San Juan of the Río Grande drainage in the States of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
The Texas Shiner can be easily confused with the Rio Grande Shiner, Notropis jemezanus (eyes wider than the snout; lack the black mid-lateral stripe boarded with a white stripe) and the West Texas Shiner, Notropis megalops (body deepest just behind the pectoral fins; pointed dorsal fin with a narrow base; darker dorsally; lighter mid-lateral stripe).
From a conservation perspective the Texas Shiner is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. Their long-term survival is threatened by changes in water quantity and quality with pollution caused by human development including dam construction and the introduction of foreign taxa. They are small in stature, rare, and of limited interest to most.