The warrior shiner (''Lythrurus alegnotus'') is a species of fish that is native to

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

Description

The shiner has a compressed body with large eyes and dark lips and chin. The upper body of the shiner has dark stripe and dots, and is a light olive color. The shiner is distinguishable from the

blacktip shiner The blacktip shiner (''Lythrurus atrapiculus'') is a freshwater ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae, the carps and minnows. It is found in the southeastern United States, particularly the Apalachicola, Choctawhatchee, Yellow and Escambia ri ...

due to the dark strip around the side of the warrior shiner. The shiner is about 7.5 centimeters, with eleven to twelve anal fins. Breeding males have red colored fins.

Taxonomy

It was originally treated as a subspecies of the blacktip shiner. However, it has since been treated as a unique species by a number of sources.

Habitat

The shiner lives in small to medium sized freshwater streams with minimal gradient and

substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism lo ...

ranging from sand to bedrock. The shiner prefers to live in deep pools that are downstream from water willows. The fish mainly lives in the

Black Warrior River The Black Warrior River is a waterway in west-central Alabama in the southeastern United States. The river rises in the extreme southern edges of the Appalachian Highlands and flows 178 miles (286 km) to the Tombigbee River, of which the ...

system in Alabama. Populations of ''Lythrurus alegnotus'' co-exist with populations of '' Lythrurus bellus'' in Lost Creek in

Walker County, Alabama Walker County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. "ACES Walker County Office" (links/history), Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES), 2007, webpage: ACES-Walker As of the 2020 census, the po ...

, the North River, and in Yellow Creek and Hurricane Creek in

Tuscaloosa County, Alabama Tuscaloosa County is a county in the northwest-central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama and is the center of commerce, education, industry, health care, and entertainment for the region. The county's population was 227,036 as of the 2020 c ...

Conservation status

The shiner is rated as

near-threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...

by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natur ...

. Its habitat range is less than 7,500 square kilometers, and many local populations of ''Lythrurus alegnotus'' have gone extinct due to the continued degradation of stream quality and the effects of

strip-mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

. The shiner is not considered to be

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because of the existence of more than ten population centers and the lack of fragmentation in population distribution. However, the IUCN still recommends the continued monitoring of warrior shiner populations and their habitat.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5589177 Lythrurus Fish described in 1972 Freshwater fish of the United States