Centrarchidae: The Sunfish Family, Its 8 Genera and ID

Centrarchidae is the family of freshwater sunfishes, native only to North America (Wikipedia). It includes most of the continent's favourite panfish and the black basses. Wikipedia counts eight genera with 38 identified species, 34 of them still living, and says the family has been introduced to Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.

Family traits (Wikipedia): a body flattened from side to side and a dorsal fin in which the spiny front part and soft rear part are joined. Size runs from the black-banded sunfish, about 3.1 inches, to the largemouth bass, which in extreme cases approaches 1 m.

Genus list from Wikipedia; each link goes to an identification page.

• Micropterus, black basses: largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass. Also see freshwater bass.
• Lepomis, true sunfishes: bluegill, pumpkinseed, redear, green, longear and redbreast sunfish and warmouth.
• Pomoxis, crappies: black crappie and white crappie.
• Ambloplites, rock basses.
• Archoplites: the Sacramento perch.
• Centrarchus: the flier.
• Enneacanthus: the banded sunfishes.
• Acantharchus: the mud sunfish.

Some are. The black basses, largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, are members of Centrarchidae, the sunfish family (Wikipedia). But striped bass, white bass and yellow bass are not: they belong to Moronidae, the temperate basses, a separate family with five living species that also includes the white perch and European seabass (Wikipedia). The quick visual difference is shape: temperate basses have long, silvery, striped bodies, while black basses and sunfish are deeper and greener. See striped bass and white bass.

Green sunfish take over small ponds. An Extension expert answer on Ask Extension gives three reasons: their mouths are much larger than other sunfish of the same length, so they win the competition for food; they are especially aggressive; and they breed prolifically. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System lists green sunfish among the unwanted species that can signal a pond needs renovating.

The usual recommended stocking in the Southeast is largemouth bass with bluegill, or bass with bluegill and redear sunfish: 75 to 100 bass and 1,000 bream per acre in fertile ponds, with the bream either all bluegill or 80% bluegill and 20% redear (Alabama Extension). Once green sunfish dominate, Ask Extension says the most reliable fix is professional treatment with a registered fish toxicant by a licensed applicator and restocking; adding large bass helps but may need repeating.

Freshwater sunfish are widely kept and eaten as panfish. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says bluegill are excellent eating when of sufficient size. Before you eat fish from a particular lake or river, check your state's fish consumption advisory for that water, since advice depends on local contamination, and check the state's size and bag limits.

If the sunfish you mean is the huge ocean sunfish, that is a different animal: the ocean sunfish (family Molidae) is unrelated to Centrarchidae (Wikipedia). See mola mola.

Start with the genus, then the species:

• Bluegill: a black ear flap and a black spot at the rear base of the dorsal fin, with five to eight greenish vertical bars; breeding males get an orange to red throat (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife).
• Crappies: see black crappie for how to tell black from white crappie.
• Pumpkinseed and redear: their ear-flap colours separate them from bluegill; see pumpkinseed and redear for the marks.

Sunfish also hybridise, which confuses both people and apps. FishLens gives a species name from a side-on photo; check the ear flap and dorsal spot before you rely on it.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI and checked line by line against the sources listed below. Every number names the organisation it comes from, and where sources disagree we say so instead of picking one silently. Prices and rules are given with the date we checked them; they change, so confirm before you rely on them. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.