BC Conservation Data Centre: Species Summary
Mylocheilus caurinus
Peamouth
| Scientific Name: | Mylocheilus caurinus (Richardson, 1836) | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English Name: | Peamouth | ||||||||||
| Classification / Taxonomy | |||||||||||
| Scientific Name - Concept Reference: | Robins, C.R., R.M. Bailey, C.E. Bond, J.R. Brooker, E.A. Lachner, R.N. Lea, and W.B. Scott. 1991. Common and scientific names of fishes from the United States and Canada. American Fisheries Society, Special Publication 20. 183 pp. | ||||||||||
| Classification Level: | Species | ||||||||||
| Species Group: | Vertebrate Animal | ||||||||||
| Species Code: | F-MYCA | ||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Conservation Status / Legal Designation | |||||||||||
| Global Status: | G5 (Feb 2016) | ||||||||||
| Provincial Status: | S5 (Jul 2025) | ||||||||||
| BC List: | Yellow | ||||||||||
| Provincial FRPA list: | |||||||||||
| Provincial Wildlife Act: | |||||||||||
| COSEWIC Status: | |||||||||||
| SARA Schedule: | |||||||||||
| General Status Canada: | 4 - Secure (2005) | ||||||||||
| Ecology & Life History | |||||||||||
| General Description: | |||||||||||
| Global Reproduction Comments: | Spawns May-June when water temperatures are 54-64 F. Females of 11-13" each produce 11000-16000 eggs. At 54 F eggs hatch in 7-8 days (Brown 1971). Sexually mature at age 3-4 years. | ||||||||||
| Global Ecology Comments: | Lives in schools. May live 13 years or more and reach 14" in length (Wydoski and Whitney 1979). Predators include fish-eating birds and mammals. | ||||||||||
| Migration Characteristics: (Global / Provincial) | |||||||||||
|
Nonmigrant: Local Migrant: Distant Migrant: Within Borders Migrant: |
N / Y / N / na / |
||||||||||
| Habitats: (Type / Subtype / Dependence) |
|||||||||||
| Global Habitat Comments: | Lakes, slow parts of small to medium rivers; weedy shallows; most common in vegetation. Limited tolerance for brackish water (Scott and Crossman 1973). Found near bottom in water less than 60 ft deep (Wydoski and Whitney 1979). Winters in deep parts of lakes. May occur in shallows at night, deep water by day. Spawns in streams or along lake shores, over gravel or rubble, in shallow water within 3 ft of shore (Brown 1971). | ||||||||||
| Food Habits: |
Invertivore: Adult, Immature
|
||||||||||
| Global Food Habits Comments: | Primarily insectivorous. Feeds on a wide variety of aquatic insects and their larvae in addition to some terrestrial insects; also eats planktonic crustaceans, molluscs, and a few small fishes (Scott and Crossman 1973). | ||||||||||
| Global Phenology: | |||||||||||
| Provincial Phenology: (1st half of month/ 2nd half of month) |
|||||||||||
| Colonial Breeder: | N | ||||||||||
| Length(cm)/width(cm)/Weight(g): | 21/ / | ||||||||||
| Elevation (m) (min / max): |
Global:
Provincial: |
||||||||||
| Distribution | |||||||||||
| Endemic: | N | ||||||||||
| Global Range Comment: | Columbia River drainage in northern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Washington; Nass (Pacific Slope) and Peace (Arctic basin) river systems in British Columbia; Vancouver Island and other islands off the coast of British Columbia; common, locally abundant (Lee et al. 1980, Wydoski and Whitney 1979, Page and Burr 1991). Lee et al. (1980) mentioned occurrence in Athabasca River, Alberta, but did not map this locality; Page and Burr (1991) did not indicate the occurrence of this species in Alberta. | ||||||||||
| Authors / Contributors | |||||||||||
| Global Information Author: | Hammerson, G. | ||||||||||
| Last Updated: | Feb 16, 1994 | ||||||||||
| Provincial Information Author: | |||||||||||
| Last Updated: | |||||||||||
| References and Related Literature | |||||||||||
Brown, C. J. D. 1971. Fishes of Montana. Big Sky Books, the Endowment and Research Foundation, Montana State University, Bozeman. MT. 207 pp. |
|||||||||||
Lee, D. S., C. R. Gilbert, C. H. Hocutt, R. E. Jenkins, D. E. McAllister, and J. R. Stauffer, Jr. 1980. Atlas of North American freshwater fishes. North Carolina State Museum of Natural History, Raleigh, North Carolina. i-x + 854 pp. |
|||||||||||
Page, L. M., and B. M. Burr. 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes: North America north of Mexico. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. 432 pp. |
|||||||||||
Robins, C.R., R.M. Bailey, C.E. Bond, J.R. Brooker, E.A. Lachner, R.N. Lea, and W.B. Scott. 1991. Common and scientific names of fishes from the United States and Canada. American Fisheries Society, Special Publication 20. 183 pp. |
|||||||||||
Scott, W. B., and E. J. Crossman. 1973. Freshwater fishes of Canada. Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Bulletin 184. 966 pp. |
|||||||||||
Simpson, J. and R. Wallace. 1982. Fishes of Idaho. The University Press of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. 238 pp. |
|||||||||||
Wydoski, R. S., and R. R. Whitney. 1979. Inland fishes of Washington. The University of Washington Press, Seattle. 220 pp. |
|||||||||||
Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for definitions of the data fields used in this summary report.
Suggested Citation:
B.C. Conservation Data Centre. 1994. Species Summary: Mylocheilus caurinus. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jan 20, 2026).