The comparison scores every group at once. This page is for the moment you already have a pair of names in mind — mayfly or stonefly, scud or sowbug, shad or alewife — and want the structures that keep them apart, in one look. Nothing here is a current hatch.
The differences, and nothing else
Best separating check: Rounded, cigar-shaped bodyAt a glance It separates Shiners and minnows from Cisco / lake herring cleanly, and every pair of groups still in play differs on it and you can check it at a glance.
What to look at
Shiners and minnows
Cisco / lake herring
Small fleshy fin before the taildecisiveIn hand
No
Yes
Rounded, cigar-shaped bodydecisiveAt a glance
Not diagnostic
Yes
Blunt flat head with a small mouthClose look
Not diagnostic
No
Deep, slab-sided bodyAt a glance
Not diagnostic
No
Dark vertical bars down the flankAt a glance
Not diagnostic
No
Reported size
38–230 mm
229–597 mm
Water it is recorded in
lake margin, lake open, river, stream, reservoir
lake open, lake margin, river
Life stages covered
young-of-year, adult
adult
How it moves
schooling; emerald shiners spawn at night in shallow water over sand or mud
schooling in open water
Reference seasonality
No family-level window
Late-autumn spawning: Nov, Dec
Rows come from the reviewed diagnostic weights the comparison scores with. “Decisive” means one answer puts them at least four points apart — the carrier's own rule for a structure that separates a pair.
The two entries, side by side
no reviewed plateNo plate is drawn for this group, and that is a decision rather than a backlog item. This family is identified by what is missing — no belly keel, no spines, no adipose fin, no thread off the back fin — so a drawing of one shiner would be asserting a shape the record does not claim for the family. Read the four absences below instead. A plate becomes possible here the day this entry narrows to a named species.
Cyprinidae
Shiners and minnows
One soft fin, no saw on the belly, nothing else to it.
First check
Run a finger along the belly, look at the front of the back fin, and check behind it. No saw-edged belly, no spines and no adipose fin is a minnow.
What it is
In forage terms the plainest family: a small fish with one soft dorsal fin, no spines anywhere, no saw-edged belly and no adipose fin. Almost every identification here is made by what is absent.
Stages
Adult (38–230 mm across four common baitfish species)
Water
lake-margin, lake-open, river, stream, reservoir
Separates from Cisco / lake herring
An adipose fin before the tail points to a cisco or other salmonid, or to a smelt — not to a minnow.
Typical windows
No family-level window in this layer.
Patterns (correspondence)
None mapped yet.
Limits
Family-level only. Species separation within Cyprinidae is not supported here.
Is there a small fleshy fin between the back fin and the tail? That is an adipose fin. A cisco has no teeth; a rainbow smelt, which also carries the fin, has obvious teeth on the jaws and tongue.
What it is
The name is misleading and the body settles it. Cisco is a member of the trout and salmon family, and it carries the family's badge: a small fleshy adipose fin between the back fin and the tail. The look-alike that shares that fin is the rainbow smelt, not a herring.
Stages
Adult (Adults average about 230–460 mm; the largest reach about 600 mm)
Water
lake-open, lake-margin, river
Separates from Shiners and minnows
This entry does not name Shiners and minnows as a look-alike. That is a gap in the prose, not proof they cannot be confused.
Typical windows
Late-autumn spawning (adult)
Patterns (correspondence)
None mapped yet.
Limits
Sources disagree on whether the cisco's lower jaw projects, so jaw position is not offered as a field character.