Help With Sunfish Ids - Hard To Id

[CaptainNemo68]

Hi again everyone, caught a few Sunfish in which I am not sure what species they are. The first one looks like it might be a Redbreast/Bluegill hybrid and the second one looks almost like a Longear, but also looks weird. The range of the Longear does not extend this far east (supposedly). What do you think?

[Wayne SW/MO]

I'm not sure what they are, but they both look the same to me and lack the coloring of the longear.

[drew03cmc]

Bluegill/pumpkinseed perhaps. Maybe just a gill/longear. I'm not sure where redbreasts live in Missouri, but that fish lacks the mouth of the redbreast sunfish.

[moguy1973]

Bluegill/pumpkin seed hybrid looks like to me.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Probably just bluegills showing a local pattern.

[Old plug]

The upper one is a male bluegill in spawing color and the lower one is a female.

[jdmidwest]

Longear sunfish. Probably brighter when you first caught them.

[motroutbum]

Its a hybrid bluegill. Could be bluegill x longear or bluegill x green sunfish.

[Al Agnew]

Am I right in that you're in Virginia? If so, I'd say they are bluegill/pumpkinseed hybrids. As you say, longears don't range that far to the east, and neither do green sunfish. Besides, I've never seen longears cross with any other species, and green sunfish/bluegill hybrids always seem to have larger mouths than typical bluegill. No other species of sunfish has a color pattern that closely resembles that of your fish, while pumpkinseed have that pattern of blue markings on the cheeks and the general color pattern on the sides of your fish. The ear flaps, however, are very bluegill like.

[jdmidwest]

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/longear-sunfish

Ear flap gives it away.