Luxilus cornutus - BIO203
Welcome to the World of Luxilus cornutus!! The Common Shiner
Welcome to my home page of the "common shiner!" Too bad it doesn't have a single common name... Before I get into the details of Luxilus cornutus, I will provide you with some of the more often used names to describe this species, just in case you were wondering if that minnow you are talking about actually is L. cornutus. First of all, Notropis cornutus is an accepted synonymous scientific name, which may be very confusing to know that the same species has two scientific names, completely different from each other. Then there are all of the other names that the common shiner is called such as creek shiner, Eastern shiner, horny head, redfin shiner, silver shiner, dace, silverside, and finally skipjack.
Some of the basic features of the fish are that it will grow up to 8
inches, which is much larger than most other minnows.
It's coloration
varies greatly depending on where on the body you are looking. It has an
olive green color with bluish reflections on its back as well as on the
sides. The underside of the fish, however, is almost purely silver.
Breeding males look much different because they have a pinkish tint over
most of their body along with dusky dorsal and tail fins. One more
characteristic of breeding males is that they form small bumps, or
tubercles on their head.
These tubercles are actually where the common shiner gets its scientific name from! The synonymous name of Notropis cornutus gives rise to this organism's name in English. Its species name, cornutus, means "horns" in Latin, and is referring to these little bumps that form on breeding males (refer to the picture at the top of this page). Notropis means "back keel" in Greek, which is referring to the keel shape of the back of a dried out specimen.
This web page is part of a bigger project found at http://www.multipleorganisms.net which contains many more organisms than just my own. If you are interested to learn more about Luxilus cornutus, click here to find out how it is scientifically classified!