Central Stoneroller

Fascinating facts about the Central Stoneroller

• A single central stoneroller can scrape as much as 27 % of its own weight in algae off rocks each day, turning a tiny fish into a powerful underwater lawn mower that helps keep streams clear of excess plant growth.
• Males spend the whole breeding season from late winter to midsummer rolling stones with their noses to carve bowl-shaped nests, a behavior that literally gives the fish its name and creates safe cradles for hundreds of eggs.
• Females lay anywhere from 200 to 4 800 eggs in each nest, then leave the sticky clutch to cling to the gravel, showing how the species relies on sheer numbers and clever egg adhesion rather than parental care to survive.
• These minnows mature anywhere between one and four years, yet they can dominate small streams, forming schools of several hundred individuals that become the most abundant fish in many clear, gravel-bottom waters.
• Despite being found from New York west to Wyoming and south to Texas, and even isolated spots in Canada and Mexico, the central stoneroller is listed as “least concern” on the IUCN Red List since 2013, a testament to its adaptability across a huge swath of North America.

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