Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

White suck­ers (Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii) are a highly ubiq­ui­tous species. Their range is over 2.5 mil­lion square kilo­me­ters, stretch­ing from east of the Macken­zie River to Labrador in Canada, and into 40 states in the East­ern and Mid­west­ern United States. White suck­ers are also an in­tro­duced species in the Col­orado River drainage basin. ("Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; Page and Burr, 2011)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
  • native

Habi­tat

White suck­ers oc­cupy a wide range of habi­tats in­clud­ing streams, rivers, and lakes but are usu­ally found in small creeks with cold, clear water and small or medium-sized rivers. White suck­ers are also highly tol­er­ant of pol­luted, murky, and anoxic wa­ters, as well as a wide array of stream gra­di­ents. They do not re­quire dense veg­e­ta­tion and pre­fer tem­per­a­tures be­tween 11.8 and 20.6 de­grees Cel­sius. Lethal pH for white suck­ers ranges from 3.0 to 3.8. (Becker, 1983; "White Sucker Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; "Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; Page and Burr, 2011; Zim­mer­man, 2012)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• freshwater

• Aquatic Biomes
• benthic
• rivers and streams

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

White suck­ers have a long, round body and grow to an av­er­age length of 241 mm and a max­i­mum weight of about 2.5 kg. They have olive brown to black col­oration on their back and a lighter col­ored, or white belly, with dusky or clear fins. Breed­ing males gain gold col­oration on their backs and red (or less com­monly cream or black) stripes across their sides. They have a tooth­less, suck­ing sub­ter­mi­nal mouth with no bar­bels. The mouth re­gion is ad­di­tion­ally char­ac­ter­ized by thick pap­pi­lose lips, with a lower lip that is about twice as thick as the upper lip. White suck­ers have fewer lat­eral line scales (be­tween 55 and 58) and a shorter snout than their close rel­a­tives, long­nose suck­ers. Young white suck­ers have dark blotches on their backs and sides. (Becker, 1983; "White Sucker Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; "Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; Page and Burr, 2011; "White Sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii (pic­tured) Long­nose Sucker, Catosto­mus catosto­mus", 2013; Zim­mer­man, 2012)

• Other Physical Features
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently
• male more colorful
• sexes shaped differently

• Range mass

  2.5 (high) kg

  5.51 (high) lb

• Average mass

  0.4 kg

  0.88 lb

• Average length

  241 mm

  9.49 in

De­vel­op­ment

Em­bry­onic de­vel­op­ment of white suck­ers is faster in warmer tem­per­a­tures. Or­gans begin de­vel­op­ing on the same day as fer­til­iza­tion, in­di­cated by the for­ma­tion of a head re­gion. Soon af­ter­wards, the em­bryo be­comes mo­bile, de­vel­ops its cir­cu­la­tory sys­tem, and in­creases in length. Their lar­vae hatch after about 5 to 7 days and are 21 to 25 mm in length, with slanted mouths and short in­testines. When white suck­ers are less than 51 mm in length, they tend to feed in shal­low water, 15 to 20 cm deep and along lake shores. In some pop­u­la­tions, white suck­ers are ma­ture by the time they are 2 years old, how­ever, on av­er­age, suck­ers are ma­ture by age 3. In other pop­u­la­tions, males ma­ture at a faster rate (2 years old) than fe­males (3 years old) but all are ma­ture by age 4. (Becker, 1983; Long and Bal­lard, 1976; McEl­man and Balon, 1980)

Re­pro­duc­tion

After mi­grat­ing up­stream to a spawn­ing area with quick run­ning water and a gravely sub­strate, fe­male white suck­ers set­tle to the bot­tom. Males, who ar­rived ear­lier, crowd around her until just two males find a place on ei­ther side of her. The three fish then rapidly vi­brate to­gether, re­leas­ing sperm and eggs. After this brief (1.5 sec­onds) spawn­ing act, the fe­male con­tin­ues up­stream to find two more male mates. Pre­sum­ably, the two males may also seek a new mate. Males do not com­pete for fe­males and typ­i­cally ig­nore each other. (Becker, 1983)

• Mating System
• polyandrous

White sucker spawn­ing and up­stream breed­ing runs last for six weeks in the spring, or early sum­mer in more north­ern re­gions. Up­stream breed­ing runs usu­ally occur at night and spawn­ing typ­i­cally lasts from April to early May. This is timed to occur shortly after ice melts from a spawn­ing area, the du­ra­tion of spawn­ing may be re­lated to the water tem­per­a­ture. Male white suck­ers reach the spawn­ing area ear­lier than fe­males and out­num­ber them. White suck­ers do not build nests or de­fend a ter­ri­tory. The spawn­ing area usu­ally has quick run­ning water and a gravely sub­strate, but spawn­ing can some­times occur in lakes if con­di­tions allow. Males may show "head trem­bling" be­hav­ior (vi­brat­ing their heads rapidly from side to side for a short time) to­wards a nearby fe­male who has come to rest at the bot­tom of a rapid. Head trem­bling may also be di­rected at other males in the spawn­ing area, al­though males do not fight for ac­cess to mates. Along with head trem­bling, male white suck­ers also spread their pec­toral fins, ex­tend their dor­sal fin, and pro­trude their jaw. (Becker, 1983; Long and Bal­lard, 1976; "Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; Zim­mer­man, 2012)

A sin­gle fe­male can pro­duces be­tween 20,000 and 50,000 eggs, about 2 to 3 mm in di­am­e­ter, which are usu­ally fer­til­ized by two males who float on ei­ther side of her dur­ing the spawn­ing act. All three fish vi­brate to­gether rapidly for about 1.5 sec­onds while the fe­male re­leases her eggs and the males re­lease their sperm. The fe­male then swims up­stream where she may mate with two more males. Due to this, a sin­gle fe­male's eggs may be scat­tered in clumps over a large area. The sticky eggs sink to the bot­tom of the spawn­ing area and be­come at­tached to gravel and other bot­tom ma­te­r­ial. After in­cu­bat­ing for 5 to 7 days, the lar­vae hatch and re­main in the area for 1 to 2 weeks. Their fry then mi­grate down­stream about 1 month after spawn­ing first oc­curred. De­pend­ing on the lo­ca­tion, white suck­ers be­come sex­u­ally ma­ture in 3 to 8 years, with males ma­tur­ing faster than fe­males. Adult white suck­ers suf­fer low spawn­ing mor­tal­ity rates, be­tween 16 and 20 per­cent. (Becker, 1983; Long and Bal­lard, 1976; "Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii", 2013; Zim­mer­man, 2012)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• sexual
• fertilization
  • external
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  White suckers breed once a year.

• Breeding season

  White suckers breed in the spring, usually from April to early May.

• Range number of offspring

  20000 to 50000

• Range time to hatching

  5 to 7 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  3 to 8 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  3 to 8 years

There is no parental in­vest­ment in white suck­ers.

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement

Lifes­pan/Longevity

White suck­ers have a max­i­mum life ex­pectancy of about 17 years. ("White Sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii (pic­tured) Long­nose Sucker, Catosto­mus catosto­mus", 2013)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  17 (high) years

Be­hav­ior

Young white suck­ers less than a year old form schools of sev­eral hun­dred fish. Adult and ju­ve­nile white suck­ers feed day and night but are more ac­tive at night when they move into shal­lower water. White suck­ers tend to co­or­di­nate their move­ment so they are in­shore dur­ing the evening and off­shore by morn­ing. In stream habi­tats, large white suck­ers can be found in deep pools. White suck­ers are also ex­cel­lent dis­persers, par­tic­u­larly after spawn­ing. In one such case, an in­di­vid­ual white sucker ended up 56 km away from the area it was tagged 5 years pre­vi­ously. (Becker, 1983)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• diurnal
• nocturnal
• crepuscular
• motile

Home Range

White suck­ers are not known to main­tain a spe­cific home range.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Dur­ing spawn­ing, male white suck­ers may show "head trem­bling" be­hav­ior, vi­brat­ing their heads rapidly from side to side to­wards a nearby fe­male, who rests at the bot­tom of a spawn­ing area, or to other males in the spawn­ing area. Males, how­ever, do not com­pete with each other for ac­cess to mates. Along with head trem­bling, male white suck­ers may also spread their pec­toral fins, ex­tend their dor­sal fin, and pro­trude their jaw. (Becker, 1983)

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

White sucker fry pas­sively feed on Pro­to­zoa, di­atoms, small crus­taceans, and midge lar­vae car­ried to them by cur­rents. As white suck­ers ma­ture, their mouth­parts move to their un­der­side, al­low­ing them to bot­tom-feed. As adults, they feed ad­di­tion­ally on fish, fish eggs, plants, mol­lusks, in­sects, ro­tifers, chi­rono­mid lar­vae, mayflies, and algae. How­ever, their feed­ing pat­tern is non­ran­dom. Adult white suck­ers feed pri­mar­ily on zoo­plank­ton and ben­thic in­ver­te­brates with mild sea­sonal vari­a­tion, but they may also spe­cial­ize in one or the other as a form of re­source par­ti­tion­ing, or se­lec­tively feed on the largest in­di­vid­u­als if re­sources are abun­dant. (Becker, 1983; Saint-Jacques, et al., 2000; Zim­mer­man, 2012)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats eggs
  • insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore
• herbivore
  • algivore
• omnivore
• planktivore
• detritivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• eggs
• insects
• mollusks
• aquatic or marine worms
• aquatic crustaceans
• other marine invertebrates
• zooplankton

• Plant Foods
• algae
• phytoplankton

• Other Foods
• detritus

Pre­da­tion

White suck­ers are an im­por­tant food source for sev­eral species of fish and land an­i­mals. Muskel­lunges com­monly feed on white suck­ers dur­ing for­ag­ing. They are also fed on by bass, bur­bot, brook trout, sea lam­prey, wall­eye, and north­ern pike. The lat­ter two pri­mar­ily feed on eggs and small white suck­ers up to about 203 mm long. Small white suck­ers are also eaten by bald ea­gles, herons, loons, and os­preys. Bears and other an­i­mals will feed on white suck­ers dur­ing spawn­ing pe­ri­ods. (Becker, 1983)

• Known Predators

  • muskellunges (Esox masquinongy)
  • bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
  • walleye (Sander vitreus)
  • bass
  • burbot (Lota lota)
  • brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)
  • sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus)
  • northern pike (Esox lucius)
  • herons (Ardeidae)
  • loons (Gavia)
  • ospreys (Pandion haliaetus)
  • bears Ursidae)

Ecosys­tem Roles

White suck­ers serve as a host species for the glochidial stage of the mol­lusks elk­toes and alewife floaters. They prey on Pro­to­zoa, di­atoms, small crus­taceans, midge lar­vae, chi­rono­mid lar­vae, mayflies, fish, fish eggs, plants, mol­lusks, in­sects, ro­tifers, and algae. Ad­di­tion­ally, they are preyed upon by muskel­lunges, bass, bur­bot, brook trout, sea lam­prey, wall­eye, north­ern pike, bald ea­gles, herons, loons, os­preys, bears, and other an­i­mals. White suck­ers are in com­pe­ti­tion with yel­low perch for ben­thic in­ver­te­brate prey. Re­moval of white suck­ers from areas with both species re­sults in higher uti­liza­tion of ben­thic in­ver­te­brates for food and lower con­sump­tion of zoo­plank­ton by yel­low perch, which in turn in­creases the growth rate of adults. How­ever, re­moval of white suck­ers does not sig­nif­i­cantly in­crease the pop­u­la­tion of yel­low perch. (Becker, 1983; Hayes, 1990)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

White suck­ers are an un­der-uti­lized, yet po­ten­tially valu­able sport fish. They are caught using worms, spears, dip nets, wet flies, and spin­ning lures. Com­mer­cial fish­eries catch them using seines, fyke, pound nets, gill nets, and trawls. Their catch is then used as food for both hu­mans and an­i­mals, in­clud­ing pets. White suck­ers are also farmed in ponds and pur­sued by an­glers using spears, hooks, and fish­ing line. The most im­por­tant eco­nomic value of white suck­ers lies in their use as food or bait. The bait in­dus­try for white suck­ers was val­ued at $300,000 in Wis­con­sin in 1968. White suck­ers have sweet, white flesh that is not as firm as that of other sport fish. Ad­di­tion­ally, white suck­ers con­tain large bones be­tween their mus­cle seg­ments that may ren­der them un­ap­pe­tiz­ing to some. Still, they can be smoked, fil­leted, or ground into pat­ties to pro­duce tasty dishes. (Becker, 1983; "White Sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii (pic­tured) Long­nose Sucker, Catosto­mus catosto­mus", 2013)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Al­though white suck­ers feed on fish eggs, this does not seen to ad­versely af­fect the pop­u­la­tions of other fish. (Becker, 1983)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

White suck­ers are a very ro­bust, com­mon, and wide-rang­ing species with large pop­u­la­tion sizes and are there­fore des­ig­nated as a species of least con­cern ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Red List. In a 1958 study fo­cus­ing on the re­moval of the species, 12,750 white suck­ers were re­moved from a south­ern Wis­con­sin stream over a 3-year pe­riod. Af­ter­wards, it was es­ti­mated that 7,411 suck­ers still re­mained in the stream. (Becker, 1983)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Aldo Her­nan­dez (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Jeff Scha­ef­fer (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Leila Si­cil­iano Mar­tina (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff.

Ref­er­ences

Na­ture­Serve. 2013. "Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii" (On-line). www.​natureserve.​org. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 20, 2013 at http://​www.​natureserve.​org/​explorer/​servlet/​NatureServe?​searchName=Catostomus%20commersoni.

Min­nesota De­part­ment of Nat­ural Re­sources. 2013. "White Sucker Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 20, 2013 at http://​www.​dnr.​state.​mn.​us/​fish/​whitesucker.​html.

State of Michi­gan. 2013. "White Sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii (pic­tured) Long­nose Sucker, Catosto­mus catosto­mus" (On-line). www.​michigan.​gov. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 21, 2013 at http://​www.​michigan.​gov/​dnr/​0,4570,7-153-10364_18958-45693--,00.​html.

Becker, G. 1983. Fishes of Wis­con­sin. Madi­son, Wis­con­sin: Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin Press. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 21, 2013 at http://​digital.​library.​wisc.​edu/​1711.​dl/​EcoNatRes.​FishesWI.

Hayes, D. 1990. Com­pe­ti­tion be­tween white sucker (Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii) and yel­low perch (Perca flavescens) : Re­sults of a whole-lake ma­nip­u­la­tion. Lans­ing, Michi­gan: Michi­gan Dept. of Nat­ural Re­sources, Fish­eries Di­vi­sion.

Long, W., W. Bal­lard. 1976. Nor­mal Em­bry­onic Stages of the White Sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii. Copeia, 2: 342-351.

McEl­man, J., E. Balon. 1980. Early on­togeny of the white sucker, Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii, with steps of salta­tory de­vel­op­ment. En­vi­ron­men­tal Bi­ol­ogy of Fishes, 5: 191-224.

Page, L., B. Burr. 2011. Pe­ter­son field guide to fresh­wa­ter fishes of North Amer­ica north of Mex­ico. Boston: Houghton Mif­flin Har­court.

Saint-Jacques, N., H. Har­vey, D. Jack­son. 2000. Se­lec­tive for­ag­ing in the white sucker (Catosto­mus com­mer­sonii). Cana­dian Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, 78: 1320-1331.

Zim­mer­man, B. 2012. Stream Fishes of Ohio. Ohio: Ohio De­part­ment of Nat­ural Re­sources.