White perch
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[Photo] White perch, Morone americana. From http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/photogallery/Fish/pages/0153.html

The white perch, Morone americana, is a fish of the temperate bass family Moronidae, notable as a food and game fish of eastern North America.

Generally pale compared to similar types (thus the name), it has been reported up to 49.5 cm in length and weighing 2.2 kg.

Although favoring brackish waters, it is also found in fresh water and coastal areas from the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario system south to the Pee Dee River in South Carolina.

White perch is a popular game fish, and also fished commercially, for instance in Chesapeake Bay. The meat, when raw, takes on a somewhat more pinkish hue than that of other panfish, but when cooked it is white and flaky.

White perch are known to eat the eggs of many native species to the Great Lakes such as walleye as well as other perch species. At times fish eggs are 100% of its diet.

White perch is also a colloquial name for the white crappie.

White perch are an extremely prolific species. The female can drop over 140,000 eggs in a single spawning session lasting just over a week. Several males will often stay near a spawning female, and each may fertilize a portion of her eggs. Within 1 to 6 days of fertilization, the young will hatch.

Due to this rapid proliferation, some states, notably Indiana has made it the law to kill all white perch caught, in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the populations invading bodies of water otherwise inhabited by naturally occurring species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_perch

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