Please add Florida Largemouth Bass, Micropterus floridanus

Common Name: 
Florida Largemouth Bass
Scientific Name: 
Micropterus floridanus
Main Photo: 
Comments: 
I'm not 100% this is a species and not a subspecies, but from what I can tell FishBase lists it as species. Caught in Florida (duh), along the Tamiami Trail.

Species Assigned:

Adult Size : 
Standard

Proposed Species Group:

Region Caught:

Closed Without Identification: 
No

Comments

the pyromaniac's picture

A lot of sources list it as a species, and more list it as a subspecies. I suspect it's probably a distinct species, as we've seen massive separation of the genus Micropterus in recent years. What was once 6 species is now at least 14.

 

 

 

Let there be fire!

BradleyR's picture

Thanks for the reply :) Yeah, I had trouble with conflicting sources. I suppose the real question is whether Roughfish will consider it a separate species? I'm new to the site so still figuring out how everything works here...

Outdoors4life's picture

Corey will get his view on this. There are guidelines followed for what to consider a different species. After catching Florida Largemouth I can tell you they are very different and should be considered different. I would be for the added species but not just for another number to my list.
Welcome aboard.

It is all perspective!

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BradleyR's picture

Thank you :) And I agree 100%, we will see.

SomewhereDownstream's picture

Sorry guys, but I personally don't see the Florida bass as a separate species. I've caught them, and you can call me whatever you want but the only real difference I see is size, and we don't classify Labrador brook trout as different than PA brook trout because their maximum size is ten times that of the former. If anyone lists some other differing details I'll probably go along with it, as I'm just as happy to put another species on the lifelist as you are, but right now I'm pretty doubtful.

SomewhereDownstream

BradleyR's picture

Also true, they are quite similar. I've never actually looked into the difference in depth. I just find they have different ''proportions'', not necessarily size. I was mostly going by the sources I saw that list them as separate.

andy's picture

Apparently there is a slight defference in lateral scale count, but overall I'd prefer to call them the same species.  My mind could be changed if obvious differences in life history or physical traits were brought up, but for now I  consider them one in the same.

 

 

 

Outdoors4life's picture

Florida FW show where the two strains live. 
http://myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/black-bass/bass-biology/

Another site said that Florida Strain has smaller scales. 

On a forum someone posted-
Florida largemouth has 69-73 scales along the lateral line compared to the northern largemouth's 59-65 scales.

So it is much like the difference between a Golden Redhorse and a Black Redhorse. 

To me that is interesting that they are considered subspecies and not a separate by biologists. The past few years there have been a number of classifications made by the scientific community.

I never really looked into it very much before. 

It is all perspective!

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Corey's picture

Folks - The American Fisheries Society currently considers the largeouth bass in Florida to be a strain or subspecies; the latest peer-reviewed article about Largemouth Bass from Florida is from 2016, when AFS-Transactions published scientists still refer to these fish as Micropterus salmoides. I may have missed a more recent article - in which case, I hope somebody can point me to it - but for these big-name species I generally prefer to use the official AFS list (although there are a few rare cases where I differ from them). They do tend to be conservative, which I usually concur with. They also reverse themselves quite a lot, which is annoying.

I certainly could see this population being split off into its own species (the ones I have caught in Florida seemed a bit different, although I can't say I'd be able to recognize them without knowing the location), but for our purposes, that apparently has not happened, yet.