A North American freshwater food and game fish (Micropterus salmoides), mostly grayish black with a dark irregular stripe along each side and a large upper jaw extending past the eye.
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large·mouth bass (lärj'mouth') ![]() |
A North American freshwater food and game fish (Micropterus salmoides), mostly grayish black with a dark irregular stripe along each side and a large upper jaw extending past the eye.
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| Animal Encyclopedia: Largemouth bass |
Micropterus salmoides
FAMILY
Centrarchidae
TAXONOMY
Micropterus salmoides Lacepède, 1802, Carolinas, United States. Two subspecies are recognized.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Green bass, largemouth black bass, northern largemouth bass; French: Achiganà grande bouche; German: Forellenbarsch; Spanish: Huro, lobina negra.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Maximum total length 38 in (97 cm). About one-third as wide as long, distinguished in part by a deeply cut dorsal fin. Differs from its relative the smallmouth bass (M. dolomieui) by its lack of horizontal striping on the head, the presence of a dark horizontal stripe on each side of the body instead of vertical banding, and a maxillary that reaches just past the eye.
DISTRIBUTION
North America from the Great Lakes east to the Atlantic coast, and from Lake Winnipeg south to northern Mexico. Also widely introduced throughout the United States and around the world, including Europe, South America, and Africa.
HABITAT
Freshwater fish, prefers lakes, ponds, swamps, and river/stream backwaters with considerable hiding places, including thick vegetation or rocky structures.
BEHAVIOR
Juveniles school, but adults are solitary animals that remain near cover, such as logs or heavy vegetation and seldom venture into waters deeper than 20 ft (6 m).
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Diurnal feeder on crustaceans and other invertebrates, also fishes.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Spawns in the late spring and early summer. The male becomes territorial and makes depressions in the substrate of weedy areas to serve as nests. A single female may lay eggs over several nests. Both males and females provide parental care, and have been known to guard the eggs and young for up to a month after hatching. Parental care continues as long as the young fishes remain schooled.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
Part of a large, popular fishing industry in the United States and Canada.
| WordNet: largemouth bass |
The noun has 2 meanings:
Meaning #1:
flesh of largemouth bass
Meaning #2:
a large black bass; the angle of the jaw falls behind the eye
Synonyms: largemouth, largemouthed bass, largemouth black bass, largemouthed black bass, Micropterus salmoides
| Wikipedia: Largemouth bass |
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| Micropterus salmoides Lacepede (1802) |
The largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) is a species of fish in the sunfish family. It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, and southern largemouth.[1] The largemouth bass is the state fish of Alabama[2](official freshwater fish), Georgia,[3] Mississippi,[4] Florida[5](state freshwater fish), and Tennessee[6](official sport fish).
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The largemouth is marked by a series of dark, sometimes black, blotches forming a jagged horizontal stripe along each flank. The upper jaw (maxilla) of a largemouth bass extends beyond the rear margin of the orbit[7]. The largemouth is the largest of the black basses, reaching a maximum recorded overall length of (29.5 in/75 cm)[8] and a maximum recorded weight of 25 pounds 1 ounce (11.4 kg).[8] The fish lives 16 years on average.[9]
The juvenile largemouth bass consumes mostly small bait-fish, scuds, and insects. Adults consume smaller fish, crawfish (crayfish), frogs, snakes, salamanders, bats and even small water birds, mammals, and baby alligators.[10] In larger lakes and reservoirs, adult bass occupy deeper water than younger fish, and shift to a diet consisting almost entirely of smaller fish like shad, trout, ciscoes, shiners, and sunfish. Prey items can be as large as 25 to 35% of the bass's body length. Studies of prey utilization by largemouths show that in weedy waters, bass grow more slowly due to difficulty in acquiring prey. Less weed cover allows bass to more easily find and catch prey, but this consists of more open-water baitfish. Paradoxically, with little or no cover, bass can devastate the prey population and starve or get stunted. Fisheries managers need to take all these factors into consideration when designing regulations for specific bodies of water. Under overhead cover such as overhanging banks, brush, or submerged structure such as weedbeds, points, humps, ridges, and drop-offs, the largemouth bass will use its senses of hearing, sight, vibration, and smell to attack and seize its prey. It can sometimes hold up to 5 sunfish in its mouth. Adult largemouth generally are apex predators within their habitat, but they are preyed upon by many animals while young.[11]
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| bluefish |
| brook trout |
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| hucho taimen |
| largemouth bass |
| northern pike |
| peacock bass |
| shoal bass |
| smallmouth bass |
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Largemouth are keenly sought after by anglers and are noted for the excitement of their fight. The fish will often become airborne in their effort to throw the hook, but many say that their cousin species, the smallmouth bass, can beat them pound for pound. Anglers most often fish for largemouth bass with lures such as plastic worms (and other plastic baits), jigs, crankbaits and spinnerbaits. A recent trend is the use of large swimbaits to target trophy bass that are used to hunting rainbow trout in California. Live bait, such as nightcrawlers, minnows, frogs or crawfish, can also be productive. In fact, large golden shiners are one of the best things to use to catch trophy bass, especially when they are sluggish in the heat of summer time or in the cold of winter. Largemouth bass is known to take any bait it considers alive.[citation needed]
There is a strong cultural pressure among largemouth bass anglers which encourages the fish's live release, especially the larger specimens. Largemouth bass, if handled with care, respond well to catch and release; many studies have shown specimens which have survived being hooked and released multiple times.
The Largemouth Bass has been known to exist in many of the lower 48 states of the U.S. Although it is most popular in the southeastern states, many different varieties of the largemouth bass can be found in the north and western regions.[citation needed]
The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) officially recognizes the heaviest largemouth bass on record as having been caught by George Perry at Montgomery Lake in Telfair County, Georgia, on June 2, 1932. The fish weighed 10 kg (22¼ lb). A largemouth bass weighing 25 pounds 1 ounce was caught by Mac Weakley in Escondido, California's Dixon Lake on March 20, 2006, but Weakley inadvertently foul-hooked the fish and released it without submitting it for a IGFA record.[8]
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![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
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