Interactions

This little guy also happens to be supper to a good amount of other animals. The fathead minnow is often described as "fuel for the food web" because they are the food that sustains larger predators higher up in the food chain. The fathead minnow has many predators: larger fish (Muskellunge, Northern Pike, Lake Sturgeon, Large Mouth Bass), turtles, frogs, newts, snakes; yep you name it, just about anything eats the fathead minnow. Its small size and abundant reproduction make it an ideal food source for large populations of top predator fish. Other examples of some of these organisms can be found here.

The fathead minnow is an excellent forage fish. Without forage fish the freshwater food web would collapse and no longer support large, diverse assemblages of top predator species. The fathead minnow mostly interacts with its own kind in schools.

 

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