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  • What's Your Diagnosis
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What's your diagnosis: Fin Plaques and Hair-Like Structures on Wild-Caught Bluegill Fish (Lepomis macrochirus)

Lab Animal volume 34, pages 14–15 (2005)Cite this article

The researchers used the bluegills to examine the effects of toxic substances on food choice and foraging because they can serve as a species indicating environmental contamination1,2. Although bluegills are considered panfish (i.e., small food fishes not available on the market) and consequently of little monetary value, the researchers chose the bluegills as the subjects of this study for several reasons: bluegills are relatively easy to maintain in a laboratory, they are large enough to operate behavioral response devices, and they have large appetites that allow observations on food choice and foraging to be repeated and validated. The researchers trained and observed each fish intensively for their experiments, so that as the experiment progressed each animal's value increased considerably.

An astute graduate student noticed lesions on the bluegills in the second week of September, three weeks after capture, and contacted the project veterinarian assigned to work with the researchers on their project. The student described the lesions on the fish as red or white spots on the dorsal and caudal fins. Laboratory members had captured the bluegills in August and transported the animals to the university without aeration. The research group housed the bluegills individually in static, aerated 114-liter (30-gallon) aquaria at 28 °C in dedicated fish rooms.

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Figure 1: Bluegills (Lepomis macro-chirus) have small mouths and oval-shaped, almost rounded, bodies.
Figure 2
Figure 3: Close-up image of the same fish in Fig. 2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nusbaum and Newton are in the Department of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Auburn University, Auburn, AL.,

    Kenneth E. Nusbaum DVM, PhD & Joseph C. Newton DVM, PhD

  2. Banna and Newland are in the Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, Auburn University, Auburn, AL.,

    Kelly M. Banna BS & M. Christopher Newland PhD

Authors
  1. Kenneth E. Nusbaum DVM, PhD
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  2. Kelly M. Banna BS
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  3. M. Christopher Newland PhD
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  4. Joseph C. Newton DVM, PhD
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Correspondence to Kenneth E. Nusbaum DVM, PhD.

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Nusbaum, K., Banna, K., Newland, M. et al. What's your diagnosis: Fin Plaques and Hair-Like Structures on Wild-Caught Bluegill Fish (Lepomis macrochirus). Lab Anim 34, 14–15 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban0105-14

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