Common Redhorse 



Common Redhorse 



Moxostonia aureoluni (Le Sueur) 



The common redhorse is found from Lakes Ontario and 

 Michigan to Nebraska and south to Arkansas and Georgia. West 

 of the Alleghanies it is everywhere an abundant and-well-known 

 fish. It reaches a length of 2 feet or more and is the most im- 

 portant food-fisli of the genus. In the upper Mississippi Valley 

 states it has always been held in considerable esteem by the farm- 

 ers, who were in the habit of snaring, seining, or catching them 

 in traps in great numbers in the spring of the year and salting 

 them for winter use. 



Like most other well-known species of wide distribution, this 

 sucker has received many common names, among which are the 

 following: mullet, white sucker, large-scaled sucker, and redtln 

 sucker. 



Head rather elongate, bluntish, broad and flattened above; 

 body stoutish, varying to moderately elongate; lips rather full, the 

 bluntish muzzle projecting beyond the large mouth; greatest depth 

 of cheek more than half distance from snout to preopercle; dorsal 

 fin medium in size, its free edge nearly straight, its longest ray 

 shorter than the head. Colour, olivaceous; sides silvery, paler 

 beneath; lower fins red or orange. 



Sucking Mullet 



Moxostoma crassilabre (Cope) 



Streams of eastern North Carolina, where it is very abundant. 

 It reaches a length of nearly 2 feet, and, in the spring, is taken in 

 large numbers in the shad seines. 



Among the vernacular names applied to it are redhorse, horse- 

 fish, redfin, and mullet. 



Head 4f to 5 in length; depth 3I; eye 3I to 4; D. 12 or 13; 

 scales 6-42 to 44-5. Body robust, the back elevated and com- 



63 



