Sucker Fish Diet
The fish species known as suckers belong to a family known as Catostomidae, according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission website. This group includes the suckers, quillbacks, redhorses and buffalo types of sucker. These fish acquired their name from the manner in which they eat, as they essentially act as vacuum cleaners in their aquatic ecosystems. Suckers ingest a variety of food items into their odd-shaped mouths.
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Function
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Suckers lack a set of typical teeth in their mouth but they do possess teeth, much like molars, in their throats. This allows them to crush whatever food they take in before it enters their digestive system. Suckers have what biologists term a ventral mouth, says the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Fishes." The mouth points downward and suckers have thick fleshy lips, as anyone that has ever caught one angling can attest. As the sucker feeds, the mouth extends down to the bottom of its habitat and the fish sucks up plant and animal matter.
Quillback Diet
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The quillbacks are a kind of sucker that enjoys a mostly animal-based diet. Quillbacks, sometimes called quillback carpsuckers, display the normal bottom-feeding behavior of the suckers. They will take in mollusks such as freshwater clams and grind them up before swallowing them. Insect larvae are a major part of this sucker's diet. Quillbacks will eat some plant matter, but not as much as other sucker species.
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Redhorse Diet
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The redhorses as a group are some of the largest suckers in terms of their size. These species, including types like the grayfin redhorse and river redhorse, have similar diets. Redhorse suckers partake of a great deal of organic detritus---dead organic matter in the water such as the fragments of bodies, as well as fecal material. Redhorses will devour snails, clams, bugs such as the larvae of mayflies and caddisflies and they eat algae.
Effects
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Many types of suckers make life a bit easier for other types of fish in the rivers, lakes and streams in which they reside. For example, the northern hog sucker, as it looks for a meal, will use its snout to root around on the bottom for food. The fish uses its head to turn over rocks, which exposes such food items as clams and crayfish. When they do this, scraping plants and algae off stones on the bottom as they go, other fish follow closely, grabbing and eating whatever the hog sucker manages to overlook.
Angling
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Anglers can catch suckers with little trouble by using the sucker's diet and method of eating to his own advantage. In most cases, you can accomplish this by simply hooking a large night crawler several times and tossing it into a slow-moving section of river with two large split shots attached close to the bait. Suckers will come along and vacuum up the night crawler. Once hooked, a sucker gives a good fight; the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website says suckers taste good, but their flesh does possess many bones.
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