Yellow Shiner, Notropis calientis

Yellow Shiner, Notropis calientis. Fish caught in a small lake within the Mexican Plateau in west-central Mexico, Michoacán, February 2017. Length: 5.0 cm (2.0 inches). Catch, photograph, and identification courtesy of Ryan Crutchfield, Tampa, Florida.

The Yellow Shiner, Notropis calientis, is a member of the Carps and Minnows or Cyprinidae Family,  and is known in Mexico as carpita amarilla. Globally, there are eighty-eight species in the genus Notropis, with more than twenty species being widespread throughout Mexico’s freshwater systems.

The Yellow Shiner is a small fish with deep and wide body being deepest anterior to their dorsal fin origin. They are brown dorsally and transition abruptly to silvery ventrally. They are sexually dimorphic with females having deeper bodies and being darker than males. They have a white chin and a subtle dark band that extends from the tip of their snout to the end of their caudal fin base and is more prominent at both ends. Their caudal and dorsal fins are dusky and their other fins are lighter. When breeding, they change to a brilliant golden yellow color. Their head has a rounded blunt snout, small eyes, and an oblique terminal mouth equipped with a limited number of small hooked teeth. Their anal fin has 7 or 8 rays; their caudal peduncle is elongated and slender being about twice as long as it is deep; their caudal fin is forked with rounded lobes; their dorsal fin has 9 rays, with the second, third, and fourth being the longest. All their fins are rounded. They have 9 short blunt gill rakers. They are covered with large scales. Their lateral line is incomplete ending at the posterior margin of the pectoral fins.

The Yellow Shiner is small freshwater species that is a resident of small mountain streams, springs, and small spring-fed lakes. They reach a maximum of 5.0 cm (2.0 inches) in length with females being larger than males. The Yellow 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 Yellow Shiner is fairly widespread being found in the Rio Lerma, Rio Grande de Santiago, Rio Pánuco, and Lake Cuitzeo drainage’s within the Mexican Plateau in west-central Mexico.

The Yellow Shiner resides in habitats that include numerous similar appearing small fish but is straightforward to identify as it is the only fish with small eyes, a short rounded snout, a deep body, a short lateral line, and rounded fins.

From a conservation perspective the Yellow Shiner have not been formally assessed but should be considered Near Threatened as the water habitat in some parts of their range has experienced a staggering amount of degradation during the 20th century and they are heavily preyed upon by various birds and recently introduced non-native fish including Black Bass, Guppies, Largemouth Bass, Sunfish, and Tilapia. They are very small in stature and of limited interest to most.