Silver chub
(Macrhybopsis storeriana)
General data
The silver chub (Macrhybopsis storeriana) is a species of freshwater fish found in North America.
The maximum size of a silver chub is 23 cm (9 in) in total length.
It is pale grey-green dorsally, becoming silvery on its sides and silvery white on its belly. The iris of its eye is white-yellow. A faint dusky lateral stripe is usually present. The caudal fin is lightly pigmented, except the lower 3-4 rays, which are completely unpigmented.
Silver chubs have a body shape that is slender, moderately compressed, and flattened ventrally.[
Their mouths are inferior and horizontal. They have a maxillary barbel, the premaxilla is protractile, and the upper lip is separated from the skin of the snout by a deep groove that is continuous along the midline.
The lateral line is either straight or has a broad arch.
Adult males have large, uniserial tubercles on the dorsal surface of pectoral fins rays 2-10. The head of a silver chub bears minute sensory buds, but not breeding tubercles.
Distribution: North America: Lake Erie drainage; Red River drainage from Manitoba, Canada south to Minnesota, USA; Mississippi River basin in Pennsylvania and West Virginia west to Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and south to Gulf Coast; Gulf drainages from Mobile Bay drainage in Alabama to Lake Pontchartrain drainages in Louisiana, USA; isolated population in Brazos River in Texas, USA.
