Identification: Becker (1983); Etnier and Starnes (1993); Jenkins and Burkhead (1994); Moyle (2002); Page and Burr (2011).
Native Range: St. Lawrence and Great Lakes, Hudson Bay (Red River), and Mississippi River basins from southern Quebec to Minnesota and south to the Gulf; Atlantic Slope drainages from North Carolina to Florida; Gulf Slope drainages from southern Florida into northern Mexico (Page and Burr 2011).
Table 1. States with nonindigenous occurrences, the earliest and latest observations in each state, and the tally and names of HUCs with observations†. Names and dates are hyperlinked to their relevant specimen records. The list of references for all nonindigenous occurrences of Micropterus salmoides are found here.
Means of Introduction: This species has been an important sport fish for many years and as such has been stocked widely in areas where it is nonindigenous. Intentional stocking for sportfishing.
Status: Established in most locations. Expanding its range in inland locations in the Great Lakes basin.
Impact of Introduction: Introduced bass usually affect populations of small native fishes through predation, sometimes resulting in the decline or extinction of such species (Minckley 1973). Species that have suffered such effects include relict dace Relictus solitarius, Clover Valley speckled dace Rhinichthys osculus oligoporus, Independence Valley tui chub Gila bicolor lethoporus (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1985b), a distinct population of Gila chub G. intermedia, Monkey Spring pupfish Cyprinodon sp. (Minckley 1973), White River springfish Crenichthys baileyi, Pahranagat roundtail chub Gila robusta jordani (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1985b), Owens pupfish Cyprinodon radiosus (Miller and Pister 1971), wild brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis (Boucher 2003), and White River spinedace Lepidomeda albivallis (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1994e). Jenkins and Burkhead (1994) speculated that introduced Largemouth Bass may have contributed to the demise of an isolated population of trout-perch Percopsis omiscomaycus in the Potomac River in Virginia and Maryland. Introduced predatory centrarchids are likely responsible for the decline of native ranid frogs in California, California tiger salamander Ambystoma californiense populations (Hayes and Jennings 1986; Dill and Cordone 1997), and the Chiricahua leopard frog Rana chiricahuensis in southeastern Arizona (Rosen et al. 1995). In Squaw Creek Reservoir in northcentral Texas, introduced Florida largemouth intergrade with native northern largemouth (Whitmore and Hellier 1988). Nonnative predators, including Largemouth Bass, have been shown to reduce the abundance and diversity of native prey species in several Pacific Northwest rivers (Hughes and Herlihy 2012). The presence of Largemouth Bass, along with other introduced piscivores, reduced the richness of native minnow communities in Adirondack lakes (Findlay et al. 2000).
Remarks: This account includes introductions of both subspecies M. s. salmoides, the northern Largemouth Bass, and M. s. floridanus, the Florida Largemouth Bass. For instance, both subspecies have been introduced into Nevada (Deacon and Williams 1984). Tyus et al. (1982) gave a distribution map of the this species in the upper Colorado basin. MacCrimmon and Robbins (1975) showed a map depicting this species' native and introduced range. Jenkins and Burkhead (1994) reported the largemouth as introduced into the Roanoke drainage in Virginia. Recently prehistoric bones of M. salmoides were discovered near the Roanoke River in Roanoke, Virginia, indicating that the species is native there (Jenkins, personal communication).
Introduced Florida Largemouth Bass are known to hybridize with native populations of northern Largemouth Bass (Whitmore and Hellier 1988), with introgression of Florida bass genes into populations occurring rapidly (Gelwick et al. 1995) and dispersing away from original introduction/stocking sites (Ray et al. 2012).
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Behnke, R.J. and D.E. Benson. 1980. Endangered and threatened fishes of the upper Colorado River basin. Bulletin 503A, Cooperative Extension Service, Colorado State University, Ft Collins, CO.
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.
Brock, V. E. 1960. The introduction of aquatic animals into Hawaiian waters. Internationale Revue der gesamten Hydrobiologie 45(4):463-480.
Cooper, E.L. 1983. Fishes of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University Press. University Park, PA. 243 pp.
Erdsman, D.S. 1984. Exotic fishes in Puerto Rico. 162-176 in W.R. Courtenay, Jr. and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. eds. Distribution, biology, and management of exotic fishes. John Hopkins. Baltimore and London.
Everhart, W.H. and W.R. Seaman. 1971. Fishes of Colorado. Colorado Game, Fish and Parks Division Denver, CO.
Ferguson, T.B. 1876. Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of Maryland to the General Assembly. January 1, 1876. John F Wiley Annapolis, MD.
Gelwick, F.P., E.R. Gilliland, and W.J. Matthews. 1995. Introgression of the Florida largemouth bass genome into stream populations of northern largemouth bass in Oklahoma. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 124(4):550-560.
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MacCrimmon, H.R., and W.H. Robbins. 1975. Distribution of black basses in North America. 56-66 in R.H. Stroud, and H. Clepper, eds. Black bass biology and management. Sport Fishing Institute, Washington, D.C.
Maciolek, J. A. 1984. Exotic fishes in Hawaii and other islands of Oceania. 131-161 in W. R. Courtenay, Jr., and J. R. Stauffer, Jr., editors. Distribution, biology, and management of exotic fishes. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
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Miller, R.R. and C.H. Lowe. 1967. Part 2. Fishes of Arizona. 133-151 in C.H. Lowe, ed. The vertebrates of Arizona. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.
Miller, R.R., and E.P. Pister. 1971. Management of the Owens pupfish, Cyprinodon radiosus, in Mono County, California. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 100(3):502-509.
Pritchard, D.L., O.D. May, Jr., and L. Rider. 1976. Stocking of predators in the predator-stocking-evaluation reservoirs. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Game and Fish Commissioners 30(1976):108-113.
Ray, J.W., M. Husemann, R.S. King, and P.D. Danely. 2012. Genetic analyses reveal dispersal of Florida bass haplotypes from reservoirs to rivers in central Texas. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 141(5):1269-1273.
Red River Authority of Texas. 2001. Red and Canadian Basins Fish Inventory: Cottle County. Red River Authority of Texas.
Renken, T. 2002. Fishermen can lapse into mistakes that are harmful to environment. St. Louis Today. November 11, 2002.
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. 251-261 in Biodiversity and management of the Madrean Archipelago: the sky island of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-GTR-264.
Shapovalov, L., A.J. Cordone, and W.A. Dill. 1981. A list of freshwater and anadromous fishes of California. California Fish and Game 67(1): 4-38.
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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 River basin: distribution, abundance, and status. 12-70 in W.H. Miller, H.M. Tyus, and C.A. Carlson, eds. Fishes of the upper Colorado River system: present and future. Western Division, American Fisheries Society.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1985. Recovery plan for the Pahranagat roundtail chub, Gila robusta jordani. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, Oregon.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1994. White River spinedace, Lepidomeda albivallis, recovery plan. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland, Oregon.
Whitmore, D.H. and T.R. Hellier. 1988. Natural hybridization between largemouth and smallmouth bass (Micropterus). Copeia 1988(2):493-396.
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