EARLY LIFE HISTORY of GOLDEN SHINERS:
Spawning Season of Adult GOLDEN SHINER: Late winter to early spring, late January to early April.
Where GOLDEN SHINER Eggs are Found: Adults of GOLDEN SHINERS gather after dark in shallow water over gravel or sandy shoals, ca. 30 to 300 cm deep. Females broadcast their semi- boy ant eggs which disperse with the movements of the adults and subsequent wind currents.
Characteristics of Eggs: Semi– boyant, transparent, light yellow yolk materials, a single, large, clear oil globule, diameter of eggs 1.0 mm to 1.7 mm.
Size of Babies at Hatching: Babies are 3.8 to 5 mm at 30 to 71 days of incubation.
Movements of GOLDEN SHINER Babies after hatching: The early lives of golden shiners illustrates a unique behavior: the development of schooling in freshwater fish. GOLDEN SHINER babies hatch over gravel or sandy shoals and begin to swim individually, at ca. 5–10 mm lengths, at the water's edge at a depth of 10 cm or less. After they grow and develop to ca. 10 mm length, a unique behavior develops. Babies and juveniles, ranging from 10 – 30 mm, are then attracted and gather together and form elliptically– shaped schools with a vertical major axis, in water depths of 0.25–1 m. These young golden shiners create and display a distinct schooling behavior near and between groups of reeds, a behavior which is quite unique in these northern waters. These schooling aggregations consisted of widely varying numbers of individuals completely independent of adults while remaining rather static and appearing to "hang" in the water column as an ellipse of young fish (Ref. 12).