Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Creek chubs (Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus) are widely found in east­ern North Amer­ica. Their range ex­tends from New­found­land through south­ern Canada to the Rocky Moun­tains, and points as far south as Florida. (Copes, 1978; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997; Simon, 2011)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Creek chubs re­quire flow­ing water for spawn­ing and are often found in small head­wa­ter creeks, small streams, and agri­cul­tural ditches over gravel and sand sub­strates. They do not thrive in streams with strong con­tin­u­ous flow, as they are not able to com­pete suc­cess­fully against larger fish species. They are able to tol­er­ate mod­er­ately high tur­bid­ity as long as there is a suf­fi­cient amount of gravel sub­strate for spawn­ing. (Copes, 1978; Moshenko, 1972; Na­grod­ski, et al., 2013; Pflieger, 1997; Simon, 2011; Stauf­fer, 2007)

• Habitat Regions
• freshwater

• Aquatic Biomes
• rivers and streams

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Adults are slen­der with a large dark spot at the front of the dor­sal fin and a smaller dark spot at the base of the tail fin. Their total body length ranges from 12 to 18 cm (30 cm max­i­mum). An­te­ri­orly, the body is hardly com­pressed, but at the cau­dal end the pe­dun­cle is com­pressed. The head is broad with a short snout and has a large oblique mouth with a small bar­bel in the groove above the upper lip. Dor­sally, they are dark olive with a dark strip along the mid­line; ven­trally, they are white, with sil­very sides. The fins are yel­low to light olive with 8 to 9 dor­sal-fin rays, 7 to 9 anal-fin rays, 13 to 18 pec­toral-fin rays, and 8 pelvic-fin rays. Creek chubs are dis­tin­guished from sim­i­lar species such as fall­fish, cut­lips min­nows, and tonguetied min­nows, by more lat­eral-line scales, and the an­te­rior mar­gin of the bot­tom lip being com­plete. Spawn­ing males de­velop breed­ing tu­ber­cles (head, snout, fins, sides, and cau­dal re­gions), are brightly col­ored (ap­ple-green above and rose-red below), and are larger in size com­pared to fe­males. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Copes, 1978; Michael, 1977; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997; Simon, 2011)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

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

• Range length

  12 to 30 cm

  4.72 to 11.81 in

De­vel­op­ment

Fer­til­ized creek chub eggs de­velop within the nest with no parental care. Within six days after fer­til­iza­tion, the eggs begin to hatch. The newly hatched lar­vae have slightly de­curved heads over a large yolk sac and are clas­si­fied as being in the pro­lar­vae stage. The end of this stage and be­gin­ning of the post­lar­vae stage oc­curs when the yolk has been ab­sorbed and all fins ex­cept the pelvic fin are vis­i­ble. The post­lar­vae stage lasts until the sca­la­tion, when the ju­ve­nile fish starts to re­sem­bles adult creek chubs. The en­tire lar­val stage lasts be­tween 18 to 27 days. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Buy­nak and Mohr, 1979; Copes, 1978; Dins­more, 1962; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997)

Re­pro­duc­tion

Creek chubs are promis­cu­ous, with mul­ti­ple fe­males vis­it­ing and lay­ing eggs at a few dif­fer­ent nests and males mat­ing with sev­eral dif­fer­ent fe­males. Males con­struct pit nests (one male per nest) roughly 5.7 cm deep on the gravel bot­tom, near the lower end of the pool (where the cur­rent is quicker). Using their mouth, males dig a small trench (par­al­lel to the course of the stream) and pile small stones up­stream form­ing a ridge roughly 30 cm wide and 550 cm long. The male oc­cu­pies and guards the com­pleted nest, and often dri­ves off other min­now species and smaller creek chubs. If they are chal­lenged by a male of sim­i­lar size, the two may en­gage in a rit­ual known as 'de­ferred com­bat'. The res­i­dent male arranges him­self along­side the in­truder and the two fish swim up­stream for vary­ing dis­tances. At the end of their course, the two males set­tle to the bot­tom and bring their heads to­gether, gen­tly, and sep­a­rate, with the owner re­turn­ing to the nest. In ad­di­tion to not being overly ag­gres­sive, the con­di­tion and lo­cal­ity of the nest is im­por­tant for male re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess. While males con­struct nests, fe­males wait nearby. Dur­ing this time, they ap­proach the male and his nest but usu­ally flee once the male ap­proaches. This be­hav­ior con­tin­ues until one fe­male does not feel in­tim­i­dated and en­ters the nest. When a fe­male en­ters the nest to spawn, the male takes up a po­si­tion at the bot­tom of the nest near the lower end of the gravel ridge and waits for the fe­male to be above him. The fe­male can still be star­tled and flee, if this oc­curs, the male will pur­sue her and try to bite or hook her. When a fe­male does not flee, the male throws her into a ver­ti­cal po­si­tion and her body is en­cir­cled by his body. The male’s op­er­cle and pec­toral fin are pressed against one side of the fe­male, while his tail is pressed against her other side. This em­brace lasts for no longer than a few sec­onds, dur­ing which, the fe­male de­posits her eggs. The fe­male leaves the nest after de­posit­ing her eggs and an­other fe­male may enter the nest and mate with the male. Once the male is done mat­ing, he aban­dons his nest. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Copes, 1978; Moshenko and Gee, 1973; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997; Stauf­fer, 2007)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Male creek chubs grow at a faster rate than fe­males. A ma­jor­ity of males reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity at the age of 3 years. Sex­u­ally ma­ture males de­velop breed­ing tu­ber­cles and change color, dis­tin­guish­ing them from fe­males. Sex­ual ma­tu­rity in fe­males is also reached around the age of 3 years, but some fe­males reach ma­tu­rity after one year. The num­ber of ripe ova per fe­male cor­re­lates with the fe­male's length. Ma­ture ova are large and round (0.15 to 0.2 cm in di­am­e­ter) and have a yel­low­ish color, while im­ma­ture ova are smaller and white (< 0.08 cm in di­am­e­ter). Mat­ing oc­curs for roughly two weeks, from mid-spring to early sum­mer in wa­ters with tem­per­a­tures above 14° C. Dur­ing spawn­ing, males and fe­males are found in fast shal­low chan­nels, with the males out­num­ber­ing fe­males. Ripened fe­males can lay be­tween 500 to 4,000 eggs (de­pend­ing on their age). If the fe­male is large enough, she can go to an­other male's nest and lay ad­di­tional eggs. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Buy­nak and Mohr, 1979; Moshenko and Gee, 1973; Moshenko, 1972; Stauf­fer, 2007)

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

• Breeding interval

  Creek chubs breed once a year.

• Breeding season

  Mating occurs for about two weeks, from mid-spring to early summer, in waters with temperatures above 14° C.

• Range number of offspring

  500 to 4000

• Average time to hatching

  6 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 to 4 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2 to 4 years

Nei­ther the male nor the fe­male are as­so­ci­ated with pro­vid­ing parental care to their off­spring. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Copes, 1978)

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Creek chubs live 4 to 5 years, with a max­i­mum lifes­pan of 8 years. (Copes, 1978; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  3 to 8 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  5 years

Be­hav­ior

Creek chubs are di­ur­nal. They feed dur­ing the day after the water tem­per­a­ture has in­creased a few de­grees. Lar­vae, how­ever, are ac­tive through­out the day and are gen­er­ally found in the shal­low runs of creeks, streams, or agri­cul­tural ditches. They are often found among lar­vae from other fish species such as long­nose daces and com­mon shin­ers. Lar­vae seek shel­ter under veg­e­ta­tion and avoid deep areas to re­duce the risk of pre­da­tion. Ju­ve­nile creek chubs school with other min­now species such as pearl daces and brassy min­nows. They oc­cupy the edge of the pools and the deeper runs. Creek chubs that are larger than 1.8 cm gen­er­ally do not school and oc­cupy shel­tered areas in deeper pools. They are ac­tive and in­stantly go to­wards any small ob­ject falling into the water. The ma­jor­ity of their time is spent near or un­der­neath cover, only mov­ing short dis­tances from one cover area to an­other. Creek chubs win­ter in deep pools and runs. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Michael, 1977; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• diurnal
• motile
• social

Home Range

Creek chubs can be very mo­bile, with move­ment both up­stream and down­stream. Their move­ment is re­lated to re­sources and pre­da­tion avoid­ance. Al­though they are very mo­bile and do change lo­ca­tions, their dis­place­ment dis­tance is not great. On av­er­age their max­i­mum range is 130 to 195 m but some travel up to 600 m. (Be­l­ica and Rahel, 2008)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Creek chubs mainly com­mu­ni­cate vi­su­ally. Dur­ing the spawn­ing sea­son, males in­ter­act with other males and in­trud­ers through as­sess­ment of in­di­vid­ual size, swim­ming pat­terns, and some­times through phys­i­cal con­tact. Pos­si­ble chem­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion oc­curs when a cyprinid species is con­sumed or in­jured, re­leas­ing a pheromone alarm that is de­tected by creek chubs. If non-cyprinid fish and cray­fish are abun­dant in the en­vi­ron­ment, then creek chubs avoid cyprinid species. ("Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace", 1908; Copes, 1978; Pflieger, 1997)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Creek chubs are gen­er­al­ized car­ni­vores with a highly adapt­able diet. They con­sume a small amount of plant mat­ter, but this is as­so­ci­ated with mu­tual con­sump­tion of its prey. In their first few months of life, they con­sume aquatic in­sect lar­vae. As they age, they con­sume adult ter­res­trial in­sects. Fur­ther growth leads to con­sump­tion of smaller fish, in­clud­ing other creek chubs, am­phib­ians, cray­fish, and mol­lusks. (Copes, 1978; Michael, 1977; Moshenko and Gee, 1973; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • eats terrestrial vertebrates
  • piscivore
  • insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore
• omnivore

• Animal Foods
• amphibians
• fish
• insects
• mollusks

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• roots and tubers

Pre­da­tion

Preda­tors in­clude larger fish such as brown trout, north­ern pike, and small mouth bass, as well as larger creek chubs. (Copes, 1978; Moshenko, 1972)

• Known Predators

  • brown trout (Salmo turtta)
  • northern pike (Esox Lucius)
  • small mouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Creek chubs are often found in dif­fer­ent lo­cal­i­ties such as head­wa­ter creeks, streams, and in de­graded habi­tats such as agri­cul­tural ditches, where they are found in great abun­dance. They are the top preda­tor in most of these lo­cal­i­ties. (Copes, 1978; Michael, 1977; Moshenko and Gee, 1973)

• Ecosystem Impact
• keystone species

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Creek chubs are eco­nom­i­cally im­por­tant as they make ex­cel­lent bait. The abun­dance of creek chubs in a given lo­cal­ity is in­creas­ingly used as an in­di­ca­tor of stream qual­ity. De­graded sites tend to have high abun­dances, cou­ple with a low di­ver­sity of other fish species. (Jor­dan, et al., 2013; Lau, et al., 2006; Pflieger, 1997)

• Positive Impacts
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Creek chubs have be­come in­va­sive in west­ern states such as Wyoming. They com­pete, and in some cases out­com­pete na­tive fish species such as round­tail chubs in Col­orado. (Quist, et al., 2006)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Creek chubs are abun­dant through­out their ge­o­graphic range. (Copes, 1978; Moshenko and Gee, 1973; Moshenko, 1972; Pflieger, 1997; Simon, 2011)

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Zane An­der­son (au­thor), In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity-Pur­due Uni­ver­sity Fort Wayne, Mark Jor­dan (ed­i­tor), In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity-Pur­due Uni­ver­sity Fort Wayne, Leila Si­cil­iano Mar­tina (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff.

Ref­er­ences

U.S. Bu­reaus of Fish­eries. Meth­ods of study­ing the habits of fishes, with an ac­count of breed­ing habits of the horned dace. 28. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: 1113-1136. 1908.

Be­l­ica, L., F. Rahel. 2008. Move­ments of creek chubs, Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus, among habi­tat patches in a plains stream. Ecol­ogy of Fresh­wa­ter Fish, 17.2: 258-272.

Buy­nak, G., H. Mohr. 1979. Lar­val de­vel­op­ment of creek chub and fall­fish from two Susque­hanna River trib­u­taries. The Pro­gres­sive Fish-Cul­tur­ist, 41/3: 124-129.

Copes, F. 1978. Ecol­ogy of the creek chub. Re­ports on the Fauna and Flora of Wis­con­sin, 12: 21.

Dins­more, J. 1962. Life his­tory of the creek chub with em­pha­sis on growth. Pro­ceed­ings of the Iowa Acad­emy of Sci­ences, 69: 296-301.

Jor­dan, M., P. Deepal, S. Kathryn, R. Gille­spie. 2013. The rel­a­tive roles of con­tem­po­rary and an­cient process in shap­ing ge­netic vari­a­tion of a gen­er­al­ist fish in catch­ment dom­i­nated by agri­cul­ture. Fresh­wa­ter Bi­ol­ogy, 58: 1660-1671.

Lau, J., T. Lauer, M. Wein­man. 2006. Im­pacts of chan­nel­iza­tion on stream habi­tats and as­so­ci­ated fish as­sem­blages in east cen­tral In­di­ana. Amer­i­can Mid­land Nat­u­ral­ist, 156/2: 319-330.

Mag­nan, P., G. FitzGer­ald. 1984. On­to­ge­netic changes in diet ac­tiv­ity, food habits and spa­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion of ju­ve­nile and adult creek chub, Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus. En­vi­ron­men­tal Bi­ol­ogy of Fishes, 11.4: 301-307.

Michael, R. 1977. Ag­gres­sion as a so­cial mech­a­nism in the creek chub (Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus). Copeia, 1977: 393-397.

Moshenko, R. 1972. Ecol­ogy of the north­ern creek chub, Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus (Mitchill) in the Mink River, Man­i­toba. Win­nipeg, Man­i­toba: The Uni­ver­sity of Man­i­toba.

Moshenko, R., J. Gee. 1973. Diet, time and place of spawn­ing, and en­vi­ron­ments oc­cu­pied by creek chub (Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus) in the Mink River, Man­i­toba. Jour­nal of the Fish­eries Board of Canada, 30.3: 357-362.

Na­grod­ski, A., C. Suski, S. Cooke. 2013. Health, con­di­tion, and sur­vival of creek chub (Se­motilus atro­mac­u­la­tus) across a gra­di­ent of stream habi­tat qual­ity fol­low­ing an ex­per­i­men­tal cor­ti­sol chal­lenge. Hy­dro­bi­olo­gia, 702.1: 283-293.

Pflieger, W. 1997. The Fishes of Mis­souri. Jef­fer­son City, MO: Mis­souri De­part­ment of Con­ser­va­tion.

Quist, M., M. Bower, W. Hu­bert. 2006. Sum­mer food habits and trophic over­lap of round tail chub and creek cub in Muddy Creek, Wyoming. The South­west­ern Nat­u­ral­ist, 51/1: 22-27.

Simon, T. 2011. Fishes of In­di­ana. Bloom­ing­ton, IN: In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity Press.

Stauf­fer, J. 2007. Fishes of West Vir­ginia. The Penn­syl­va­nia Sate Uni­ver­sity: Acad­emy of Nat­ural Sci­ences.