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The Nonindigenous Occurrences section of the NAS species profiles has a new structure. The section is now dynamically updated from the NAS database to ensure that it contains the most current and accurate information. Occurrences are summarized in Table 1, alphabetically by state, with years of earliest and most recent observations, and the tally and names of drainages where the species was observed. The table contains hyperlinks to collections tables of specimens based on the states, years, and drainages selected. References to specimens that were not obtained through sighting reports and personal communications are found through the hyperlink in the Table 1 caption or through the individual specimens linked in the collections tables.

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Common name: Black Bullhead

Synonyms and Other Names: Ictalurus melas

Taxonomy: available through www.itis.gov

Identification: Becker (1983); Page and Burr (1991); Etnier and Starnes (1993); Jenkins and Burkhead (1994); Page and Burr (2011).

Black Bullhead is superficially similar to both Yellow Bullhead (A. natalis) and Brown Bullhead (A. nebulosus). Black Bullhead can be distinguished from Yellow Bullhead by the presence of dark colored chin barbels (vs. white or yellow barbels), a slightly notched caudal fin margin (vs. straight caudal fin margin), and a rounded, short anal fin with 19-23 fin rays (vs. mostly straight anal fin with 24-27 rays). Black Bullhead can be distinguished from Brown Bullhead by the lack of large saw-like teeth on the rear of the pectoral spine (vs. 5-8 teeth present), uniform color with no mottling on body (vs. brown/black mottling or spotting present), barbel at the corner of the mouth does not reach the pectoral fin (vs. reaching past pectoral fin base), and black fin membranes with contrasting pale fin rays in the anal and caudal fins (vs. low/no contrast between fin rays and membrane).

Size: Up to 62 cm TL (Page and Burr 2011)

Native Range: Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and Mississippi River basins from New York to southern Saskatchewan and Montana, south to Gulf; Gulf Slope drainages from Mobile Bay, Georgia and Alabama, to northern Mexico. Apparently not native to Atlantic Slope (Page and Burr 1991).

Alaska	Hawaii	Puerto Rico & Virgin Islands	Guam Saipan

Native range data for this species provided in part by NatureServe

Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCs) Explained
Interactive maps: Point Distribution Maps

Means of Introduction: Intentionally stocked for sport and as a food fish. In Idaho, it was probably accidentally stocked with brown bullhead A. nebulosus or with channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus (Linder 1963).

Status: Established in most locations where introduced. Apparently not established in Connecticut (Whitworth 1996). A single report from Massachusetts in the 1940s (Hartel 1992).

Impact of Introduction: Introduced Black Bullhead eat endangered humpback chubs Gila cypha in the Little Colorado River, and may exert a major negative effect on the population there (Marsh and Douglas 1997). Minckley (1973) reported that this species is generally considered a pest in Arizona as it forms large stunted populations that compete with more desirable fishes for space and food. Black Bullheads are voracious predators of newly hatched gamefish (Whitmore 1997). Introduced predatory fishes, including the Black Bullhead, are likely at least partially responsible for the decline of the Chiricahua leopard frog Rana chiricahuensis in southeastern Arizona (Rosen et al. 1995), and have been shown to reduce the abundance and diversity of native prey species in several Pacific Northwest rivers (Hughes and Herlihy 2012).

Remarks: Although the Black Bullhead has not been reported from South Carolina, it is probable that it has been introduced into the state. Tyus et al. (1982) gave a distribution map of the this species in the upper Colorado basin. Occurrence in Maryland is not listed by Lee et al. (1976, 1981) or Rohde et al. (1994). Becker (1983) states that in Wisconsin the Black Bullhead's distribution is much more extensive now than it was in the mid-1920s, especially in northern Wisconsin.

References: (click for full references)

Anonymous 2001. Oregon's Warm Water Fishing with Public Access. [online]. URL at http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFwhtml/FishText/WWFishing/WWFishAL.html.

Becker, G.C. 1983. Fishes of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.

Behnke, R.J., and R.M. Wetzel. 1960. A preliminary list of the fishes found in the fresh waters of Connecticut. Copeia 1960(2):141--143.

Bradley, W.G. and J.E. Deacon. 1967. The biotic communities of southern Nevada. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers No. 13, Part 4.  201-273.

Brown, C.J.D. 1971. Fishes of Montana. Montana State University, Bozeman, MT.

Burkhead, N.M., R.E. Jenkins, and E.G. Maurakis. 1980. New records, distribution and diagnostic characters of Virginia ictalurid catfishes with an adnexed adipose fin. Brimleyana 4:75--93.

Cross, F.B. 1967. Handbook of Fishes of Kansas. State Biological Survey and University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, Miscellaneous Publication 45, Topeka, KS.

Dahlberg, M.D., and D.C. Scott. 1971b. Introductions of freshwater fishes in Georgia. Bulletin of the Georgia Academy of Science 29:245--252.

Deacon, J.E., and J.E. Williams. 1984. Annotated list of the fishes of Nevada. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 97(1):103--118.

Etnier, D.A., and W.C. Starnes. 1993. The fishes of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.

Everhart, W.H., and W.R. Seaman. 1971. Fishes of Colorado. Colorado Game, Fish and Parks Division, Denver, CO. 75 pp.

Fletcher, D. - Warmwater Fisheries Resource Manager, Washington Department of Wildlife, Olympia, WA. Response to NBS-G nonindigenous questionaire and other reports. 1992.

Hartel, K.E. 1992. Non-native fishes known from Massachusetts freshwaters. Occasional Reports of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Fish Department, Cambridge, MA. 2. September. pp. 1-9. 

Hocutt, C.H., R.E. Jenkins, and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. 1986. Zoogeography of the fishes of the central Appalachians and central Atlantic Coastal Plain. 161-212 in C.H. Hocutt and E.O. Wiley, eds. The zoogeography of North American freshwater fishes. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.

Holton, G.D. 1990. A field guide to Montana fishes. Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Helena, MT. 104 pp.

Hubbs, C., R.J. Edwards, and G.P. Garrett. 1991. An annotated checklist of freshwater fishes of Texas, with key to identification of species. Texas Journal of Science, Supplement 43(4):1-56.

Hughes, R.M. and A.T. Herlihy. 2012. Patterns in catch per unit effort of native prey fish and alien piscivorous fish in 7 Pacific Northwest USA rivers. Fisheries 37(5):201-211.

Idaho Fish and Game. 1990. Fisheries Management Plan 1991-1995. Appendix I -- A list of Idaho fishes and their distribution by drainage. Idaho Fish and Game.

Jenkins, R.E., and N.M. Burkhead. 1994. Freshwater fishes of Virginia. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.

Jones, D.J. 1963. A history of Nebraska's fisheries resources. Dingell-Hohnson Federal Aid in Fish Restoration Project F-4-R Publication. Nebraska Game, Forestation and Parks Commission.

Koster, W.J. 1957. Guide to the fishes of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM.

Lampman, B.H. 1946. The coming of the pond fishes. Binfords and Mort, Portland, OR.

Lanigan, S.H. and C.R. Berry Jr. 1981. Distribution of fishes in the White River, Utah. The Southwestern Naturalist, 26(4): 389-393.

La Rivers, I. 1962. Fishes and fisheries of Nevada. Nevada State Print Office, Carson City, NV.

Lee, D.S., C.R. Gilbert, C.H. Hocutt, R.E. Jenkins, D.E. McAllister, and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. 1980 et seq. Atlas of North American freshwater fishes. North Carolina State Museum of Natural History, Raleigh, NC.

Linder, A.D. 1963. Idaho's alien fishes. Tebiwa 6(2):12--15.

Marsh, P.C., and M.E. Douglas. 1997. Predation by introduced fishes on endangered humpback chub and other native species in the Little Colorado RIver, Arizona. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 126:343-346.

Matern, S.A., P.B. Moyle, and L.C. Pierce. 2002. Native and alien fishes in a California estuarine marsh: twenty-one years of changing assemblages. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. 131: 797-816.

Menhinick, E.F. 1991. The freshwater fishes of North Carolina. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. 227 pp.

Miller, R.R., and J.R. Alcorn. 1946. The introduced fishes of Nevada, with a history of their introduction. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 73:173--193.

Miller, R.R. and C.H. Lowe. 1967. Part 2. Fishes of Arizona, p 133-151, In: C.H. Lowe, ed. The Vertebrates of Arizona. University of Arizona Press. Tucson.

Minckley, W. L. 1973. Fishes of Arizona. Arizona Fish and Game Department. Sims Printing Company, Inc., Phoenix, AZ.

Moyle, P.B. and J. Randall. 1999. Distribution maps of fishes in California. [on-line] Available URL at http://ice.ucdavis.edu/aquadiv/fishcovs/fishmaps.html.

Page, L.M., and B.M. Burr. 2011. Peterson field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. 2nd edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA.

Platania, S. P. 1991. Fishes of the Rio Chama and upper Rio Grande, New Mexico, with preliminary comments on their longitudinal distribution. Southwestern Naturalist 36(2):186--193.

Rosen, P.C., C.R. Schwalbe, D.A. Parizek, Jr., P.A. Holm, and C.H. Lowe. 1995. Introduced aquatic vertebrates in the Chiricahua region: effects on declining native ranid frogs. Pages 251-261 in DeBano, L.H., P.H. Folliott, A. Ortega-Rubio, G.J. Gottfried, R.H. Hamre, and C.B. Edminster, eds. Biodiversity and management of the Madrean Archipelago: the sky islands of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. Fort Collins, CO.

Schmidt, R.E. 1986. Zoogeography of the northern Appalachians. Pages 137-160 in Hocutt, C.H., and E.O. Wiley, eds. The zoogeography of North American freshwater fishes. John Wiley and Sons. New York, NY.

Sigler, W.F., and R.R. Miller. 1963. Fishes of Utah. Utah Department of Fish and Game, Salt Lake City, UT. 203 pp.

Simpson, J., and R. Wallace. 1978. Fishes of Idaho. University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID.

Sommer, T., B. Harrell, M. Nobriga, R. Brown, P. Moyle, W. Kimmerer, and L. Schemel. 2001. California's Yolo Bypass: Evidence that flood control can be compatible with fisheries, wetlands, wildlife, and agriculture. Fisheries. American Fisheries Society. 26 (8): 6-16.

Sublette, J.E., M.D. Hatch, and M. Sublette. 1990. The fishes of New Mexico. New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. 393 pp.

Swift, C.C., T.R. Haglund, M. Ruiz, and R.N. Fisher. 1993. The status and distribution of the freshwater fishes of southern California. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Science 92(3):101-167.

Tilmant, J.T. 1999. Management of nonindigenous aquatic fish in the U.S. National Park System. National Park Service. 50 pp.

Tyus, H.M., B.D. Burdick, R.A. Valdez, C.M. Haynes, T.A. Lytle, and C.R. Berry. 1982. Fishes of the upper Colorado basin: distribution, abundance, and status. Pages 12-70 in Miller, W.H., H.M. Tyus, and C.A. Carlson, eds. Fishes of the upper Colorado River system: present and future. Western Division, American Fisheries Society. Bethesda, MD.

Whitmore, S. 1997. Aquatic nuisance species in Region 6 of the Fish and Wildlife Service. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Plains Fish and Wildlife Mangement Assistance Office, Pierre, SD.

Wydoski, R.S., and R.R. Whitney. 1979. Inland fishes of Washington. University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA.

Other Resources:
Missouri River Introduced Fish - Black Bullhead

Author: Fuller, P., and Neilson, M.E.

Peer Review Date: 5/29/2012

This information is preliminary or provisional and is subject to revision. It is being provided to meet the need for timely best science. The information has not received final approval by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and is provided on the condition that neither the USGS nor the U.S. Government shall be held liable for any damages resulting from the authorized or unauthorized use of the information.