Blacknose Shiner
(Notropis heterolepis)
The blacknose shiner is a species that requires very clear water and moderate amounts of vegetation. They have not been found in Ohio since the early 1980's.
Description
Blacknose shiners have black pigment on the tip of the snout and upper jaw and none on the lower jaw which is white. This pigment is the beginning of a black stripe that runs through the eye, across the gills, and along the side to the base of the tail. The scales on the back and upper sides have distinct dark edges. There is a narrow stripe of golden colored scales that lack any dark edges just above the black stripe along the sides that sharply contrasts with the back and stripe. Blacknose shiners have an incomplete lateral line with a dusky bar at the rear edge of the scales along the black stripe on the sides. The snout overhangs the lower jaw of the rather small and slightly sub-terminal (ending below tip of snout) mouth. All fins are transparent and they have 8 anal fin rays. The blacknose shiner differs from the closely associated Blackchin Shiner in having a smaller mouth and no pigment on the lower jaw.
Habitat and Habits
Blacknose shiners were once well distributed across northern and western Ohio. They were found in slow moving small meandering prairie streams, glacial lakes, and the bays and marshes of western Lake Erie. They were last seen in Rocky Fork Creek near New Albany in the early 1980's. It is likely they no longer are found in Ohio. Blacknose shiners require very clear water with moderate amounts of aquatic vegetation and a clean sand substrate. This species quickly disappears when waters become turbid (murky) and the substrate silted over with clay.
Reproduction and Care of the Young
Blacknose shiners spawn in June or July by scattering eggs over vegetation. The eggs hatch in a few days and no further parental care is given.