Animals -> Fish -> Freshwater Fish -> Sticklebacks

Sticklebacks

The Onondaga Iroquois are reported to have consumed brook stickleback and three-spined stickleback. The preferred method of preparation was frying with bear or deer grease [1].

Reference

1.         Waugh FW: Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation, vol. No. 12; Anthropological Series. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau; 1916.

Sticklebacks represent a small family of scaleless fish, with both freshwater and searun forms. In North America, freshwater sticklebacks include the brook stickleback (Culaea inconstans) and the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). They are small, less then 10 cm long, and have short, solid spines on their first dorsal fin, on the front end of their anal fin, and on both pelvic fins. They feed on a variety of things, from algae to the eggs and young of other fish species, including their own, and are an important food source for the cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii).

Reference

Wooding FH: Lake, river and sea-run fishes of Canada. Madeira Park, BC, Canada: Harbour Publishing; 1997.

 

Images provided below were obtained from: Encyclopedia of Life. Available from http://www.eol.org.
Brook stickleback
Supplier: Wikimedia Commons
Photographer: Anonymous
This map is based on occurrence records available through the GBIF network
Three-spined stickleback
© Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Fishes
Supplier: National Museum of Natural History Collections
This map is based on occurrence records available through the GBIF network