Ill 



W^estern mud minnow 



Spawning takes place in early spring, usually 

 upstream in small brooks. The mud minnow is very hardy 

 but isnot a popular bait species, except in Wisconsin, 

 as it is not very "active. 



This species hibernates m tne mud and will go 

 down 4 to 9 inches. It may be found in the mud in a 

 horizontal position or in a vertical position with the 

 head upward. When alarmed, it usually buries itself. 



Evermann (1901) says: "So persistently do they 

 cling to life that it is really difficult to kill them. 

 ... Its unexcelled tenacity of life is, however, about 

 the only thing it has to recommend it as a bait minnow. 

 Its somber, unattractive color prevents itbeing readily 

 seen by game fishes, and its tendency to pull down or 

 get to the bottom also militates against it. But bass 

 and pickerel and pike do sometimes take it and, in 

 spite of its deficiencies, the Mudfish is a good thing 

 to have in one's minnow pail." 



The food of the mud minnow is mostly of an animal 

 nature. It has been known to eat insects, spiders, 

 mites, amphipods, entomos tracans, snails, leeches, 

 oligochaete worms, nematodes, rotifers, protozoans, 

 plants, algae, and eai-thworms. A summary of the records 

 indicates that mud minnows will take as much as 80 

 percent of their food from insect fauna, some have 

 taken 90 percent amphipods, others have taken 50 

 percent entomostracans. More than 20 percent of the 

 stomach contents of others has been plant food. More 

 than 50 percent of the food of some stomachs has been 

 mollusks, and in one collection 40 percent of the 

 stomach contents was surface drift. 



Stomach analyses by various workers showed that the 

 digestive tracts of mud minnows contained the following 

 average percentages: insects, 45.6; amphipods, 11.1; 

 entomostracans, 16.3; mollusks, 12.3; arachnids, 0.16; 

 plants, 7.1; surface drift, 4.6; algae, 1.4; miscella- 

 neous, 1.24; and silt, 0.2. 



