Quillback carpsuckers are found throughout much of eastern North America as far north as Saskatchewan, south to Florida and as far west as South Dakota, Kansas and Alabama.

Quillback carpsuckers have also been introduced in Mexico where they have established a reproducing population.

Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Introduced , Native )

occurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations

Canada

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

United States

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Type of Residency: Year-round

Global Range: Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River, Hudson Bay, and Mississippi River basins from Quebec to Alberta and south to Louisiana, west to Wyoming; Atlantic Slope drainages from the Delaware River, New York, to the Altamaha River, South Carolina (except apparently absent in the Rappahonnock and York drainages, Virginia, and the Tar and Neuse drainages, North Carolina; Gulf Slope drainages from the Apalachicola River, Florida and Georgia, to the Pearl River, Louisiana (Page and Burr 1991).

Quillback carpsuckers have a deeply compressed body giving them a flattened appearance when viewed from the side. They have large silvery scales and greater than or equal to 37 lateral line scales. Silver scales give them a silver coloration from the side fading to a dark color dorsally. Quillback carpsuckers are distinguished from other carpsuckers by their long first dorsal ray which does not extend beyond the posterior base of the dorsal fin. The first dorsal fin is up to five times longer than the posterior dorsal rays, total number of dorsal rays is usually greater than 28. They have an average of seven anal rays. They have a typical sucker mouth and, when viewed from the side, the back of the mouth does not extend past the anterior portion of the eye. Quillback carpsuckers have a deeply forked caudal fin.

The largest recorded quillback carpsucker was caught in Nebraska on the Missouri River by Patrick Fox Jr. on June 3, 2001, weighing 6.18 kg (13 lbs. 10 oz.) and measuring 71.2 cm (28 inches) in length.

Range mass: 6.18 (high) kg.

Range length: 71.2 (high) cm.

Average length: 66 cm.

Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; heterothermic ; bilateral symmetry

Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike

Length: 66 cm

Quillback carpsuckers prefer to live in highly productive streams that are moderately deep and clear. Quillback carpsuckers prefer clear water over highly turbid waters, unlike other carpsuckers, but are highly adaptable to slow moving streams. They are also found in lakes (and their tributaries) including the Great Lakes.

Habitat Regions: temperate ; freshwater

Aquatic Biomes: benthic ; lakes and ponds; rivers and streams

Habitat Type: Freshwater

Comments: Pools, backwaters, and main channels, clear to turbid waters of creeks, rivers, and lakes. Spawns over sand and mud bottoms in quiet waters of streams or overflow areas in bends of rivers or bays of lakes (Scott and Crossman 1973).

Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.

Locally Migrant: Yes. At least some populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.

May migrate up small creeks to spawning areas (Trautman 1981). In Manitoba, upstream spawning migrations began after water temperatures reached 5 C but only when discharges were high; migrated up to 32 km upstream when discharges high, only 2-3 km when discharges low (Parker and Franzin 1991).

Quillback carpsuckers prefer to feed on the bottoms of lakes, rivers and streams; specifically they prefer clear, bottom water. They seek aquatic insect larvae and other small organisms such as mollusks, fingernail clams and aquatic vegetation.

Animal Foods: insects; mollusks; aquatic crustaceans

Plant Foods: leaves; algae

Primary Diet: omnivore

Comments: Eats debris in bottom ooze, plant materials, and insect larvae (Becker 1983).

Quillback carpsuckers are bottom feeders and, like other bottom feeders, they help to keep their ecosystem clean by feeding on bottom matter.

Ecosystem Impact: biodegradation

Mortality is high among eggs, fry and young fish because they provide forage for predatory fish. An anti-predator adaptation is the production of several thousand eggs per breeding season to ensure the survival of some offspring. Adult quillbacks are usually not preyed upon due to their size and their schooling behavior.

Quillback carpsuckers use visual and tactile cues to perceive their environment, as do most other fish. Little else is known about perception or intraspecific communication.

Perception Channels: visual

Quillback carpsuckers are open substrate spawners and hatch from an unguarded spawning area where eggs are released by the female and fertilized by the male (or males). Once eggs are fertilized they take 8-12 days to hatch.

Growth averages 7 to 9 cm (3 to 4 inches) per year in the younger ages to about 2 to 4 cm (1 to 1 1/2) inches each year for older specimens. A six year-old quillback carpsucker would be about 31 cm (12 inches) in length and weigh slightly over 450 g (one pound). Quillback carpsuckers are a long-lived species, with fish as old as 11 years found in populations.

Mortality is high among the eggs, fry and young fish because they provide forage for predatory fish. Among adult quillback carpsuckers mortality is 60 to 70 percent annually.

Range lifespan

Status: wild: 11 (high) years.

Average lifespan

Status: captivity: 11 years.

Male and female quillback carpsuckers make a run, or migration, to their spawning areas where they release eggs and sperm in shallow water over gravelly riffles, sand or mud.

Mating System: polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Female quillback carpsuckers release several hundred thousand eggs which are scattered haphazardly in shallow water. An average of 64,000 eggs are produced by six year old-female quillbacks (Mayhew 1987). Quillbacks achieve independence almost immediately after hatching.

Breeding interval: Quillback carpsuckers breed once yearly.

Breeding season: Quillback carpsuckers breed in the spring-summer months depending on water temperature. The ideal water temperature for breeding is 7-18 degrees Celsius.

Average number of offspring: 64,000.

Range time to hatching: 8 to 12 days.

Range time to independence: 8 to 12 days.

Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; fertilization (External ); broadcast (group) spawning; oviparous

Female quillbacks have a pre-fertilization investment similar to other open substrate non-guarding fishes. Females begin developing eggs internally long before hatch which requires energy. Pre-fertilization investment of males is much less than that of females. Neither sex has any apparent parental involvement after fertilization. The eggs are not guarded and they are left to develop and hatch on their own.

Parental Investment: pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female)

Spawns in spring and summer. In Manitoba, probably an annual spawner; spawned from mid-April to mid-June at water temperatures of 7-18 C; ova hatched after 13-17 days (Parker and Franzin 1991).

Quillback carpsuckers are critically imperiled in Vermont; imperiled in New York and Michigan; vulnerable in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina. Populations seem to be stable in Wyoming, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ontario, Iowa, Illinois, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Manitoba and the District of Columbia. Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota and North Dakota have not ranked Carpiodes cyprinus.

US Federal List: no special status

CITES: no special status

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: N3 - Vulnerable

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure

This species has no known negative economic effects on humans.

Quillback carpsuckers are a minor commercial fish in the United States with little or no economic benefit to fishermen. Quillback carpsuckers introduced to Mexico however provide an important economic benefit to the northeastern portion of that country.

Positive Impacts: food

Comments: In need of further study of geographic variation and subspecies taxonomy. See Smith (1992) for a study of the phylogeny and biogeography of the Catostomidae.