Catching the beauty and distinction of northern sunfish

Glen Gorman emailed fish photos after fly-fishing Oct. 1 on the Kankakee River, noting: ‘‘Caught a bunch of these . . . northern sunfish? Beautiful fish!’’

They were beautiful small fish. Longear, northern and pumpkinseed sunfish are the most aesthetically striking visually among our native fish.

I guessed longear, but Gorman is not a schmo, so I checked my Seek app. It identified it as a longear. But outdoors apps are helpers, not oracle pronouncements. Plus, I suspected the database of iNaturalist (I use Seek, the country cousin of iNaturalist, because it works better with low reception) didn’t have much about northern sunfish.

It wasn’t until 2013 that the American Fisheries Society recognized northern sunfish (Lepomis peltastes) as a separate species. Before that, it was considered a subspecies of longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis).

I went old-school and found a key for northern sunfish. The photos checked every point, so I reached out to people smarter and more experienced than I am.

Chris Taylor, the emeritus curator of fishes and crustaceans for the Illinois Natural History Survey, agreed it looked like a northern sunfish.

Phil Willink, a researcher for the INHS, agreed, adding: ‘‘I am largely looking at the red around the opercular flap and the angle of the flap. . . . It is great that you are getting the word out about these two species and that people are actually paying attention!’’

It matters that we appreciate our native fish.

‘‘Yes, I’d call that a northern sunfish with that round body shape and red in the border of the ear flap,’’ emailed Trent Thomas, a streams biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. ‘‘I collected both, northern sunfish and longear sunfish, at a site on the Vermilion River at Oglesby [on Oct. 1].’’

It’s worth looking closely.

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