White sucker

Language English

Onglets

Description

Distinguishing features

The white sucker is a North American freshwater fish with an elongated, cylindrical body covered in large grey-brown scales. Its downward-facing mouth has thick, fleshy lips specialized for probing through sediment.

Its head is rounded, and the position of its fins is adapted for slow swimming near the bottom.

Reproduction

The white sucker breeds in spring, when the water temperature reaches about 10 to 15 degrees Celsius. Adults migrate to shallow streams with gravel bottoms to spawn.

The female lays between 20,000 and 50,000 eggs in the gravel, where they are immediately fertilized by one or more males.

This species provides no parental care. The numerous, non-adhesive eggs develop and hatch within a few days, then drift with the current. After hatching, the young move into calmer waters.

Diet

The white sucker is an omnivore that probes through mud or sand with its downward-facing mouth. It feeds mainly on insect larvae, small invertebrates, and worms, but also on fine organic matter and sometimes algae.

Its ecological role as a “cleaner” helps recycle nutrients and maintain the quality of benthic habitats.

Predators

Young white suckers are preyed upon by several carnivorous fish, including walleye, northern pike, muskellunge, and yellow perch. Adults are preyed upon by river otters, mink, and various fish-eating birds, notably great blue herons and ospreys.

This fish is not targeted by commercial fisheries.

Habitat

The white sucker inhabits lakes, rivers, and streams with slow to moderate flow and sandy or gravelly bottoms. It prefers cool, well-oxygenated waters, but also tolerates slightly turbid environments.

The species is widely distributed across North America, particularly in Quebec, Ontario, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi basin.

Ecology, behaviour

A rather gregarious species, the white sucker often forms small groups while feeding. Highly tolerant of temperature changes and moderately disturbed environments, it plays a key role in the dynamics of aquatic bottoms by stirring up sediment as it searches for food.

Because of the way it responds to environmental change, the species is also used as a sentinel to monitor contamination and the health of aquatic ecosystems.

French name

Meunier noir

Scientific name

Catostomus commersonii

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Osteichthyes (bony fish)

Order

Cypriniformes

Family

Catostomidae

Size

Length: 30 to 50 cm

Weight

500 g to 1 kg

Life span

17 years

Status

Common species

At the Biodôme

A small group of white suckers can be seen in the lake with the Canadian Beavers, in the Laurentian Maple Forest ecosystem. They are often seen probing through the gravel at the bottom of the tank in search of food.

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