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Distribution of Fishes in the Red River of the North Basin on Multivariate Environmental Gradients

Cyprinidae

Fathead Minnow

Pimephales promelas Rafinesque, the fathead minnow, was collected by Woolman (1896) from the Forest, Goose, Maple, Sheyenne, and Buffalo Rivers where it was rare to abundant in the samples (Figure A41). Hankinson (1928) collected it from the Red, Pembina, and Park Rivers in North Dakota; and Olson (1932) reported it from the Snake and Wild Rice Rivers in Minnesota. Other early records include that by Deason and Nelson, who collected the fathead minnow from the Tamarack and Mud Rivers (Red Lake River) (UMMZ 1994), and by Bailey and Allum (1962), who provided records of this species from a site on Lake Traverse, where it was found in 1949. The fathead minnow has been collected from nearly every stream in the basin. It is second only to Catostomus commersoni, the white sucker, in its occurrence, having been taken at 53% of stream sites sampled in the basin since 1962 (Table 4). The species can be extremely abundant in the site collections, particularly from western basin tributaries, where samples approaching 1000 individuals have been obtained.

Figure A40. Distribution of the fathead minnow in streams of the Red River of the North basin

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