Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Saugers are fresh­wa­ter per­cids na­tive to the Nearc­tic re­gion. Saugers in­habit most of the con­ti­nen­tal United States, east of the Rocky Moun­tains and west of the Ap­palachian Moun­tains as well as sev­eral provinces in Canada. Their range in­cludes the Mis­souri, Ohio, Mis­sis­sippi, and Saint Lawrence River drainages, all of the Great Lakes, and many trib­u­taries. They are found from Al­berta to Man­i­toba in Canada. In the United States, saugers are found as far west as Wyoming and Ok­la­homa, and as far east as New York and Al­abama. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Saugers in­habit rivers and larger lakes. They pre­fer flow­ing river chan­nels with deep, tur­bid water and mod­er­ate cur­rents. Saugers are con­sid­ered a cool water species, fa­vor­ing water that is ap­prox­i­mately 19.6°C. Saugers typ­i­cally re­side in deeper water than the closely-re­lated walleyes, and have a highly-de­vel­oped tape­tum lu­cidum, or re­flec­tive layer in their eyes that al­lows them to see in this darker habi­tat. In one study, saugers were found be­tween 3 and 35 me­ters in the Ot­tawa River, On­tario, while walleyes were not typ­i­cally found below 12 m. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Sauger", 2013a; John­son and Ober­lie, 2008)

• Habitat Regions
• freshwater

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams

• Range depth

  35 (high) m

  114.83 (high) ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Saugers have slen­der, dark-yel­low to brown bod­ies that have large, dark sad­dles on their sides and white un­der­sides. They have two sep­a­rate dor­sal fins. The first dor­sal fin has 12 spines and the sec­ond dor­sal fin has 1 to 2 spines and 18 rays. Saugers also have two pec­toral fins, an anal fin that con­tains 2 spines and 11 to 13 rays and a forked cau­dal fin. They have ctenoid scales and com­plete lat­eral lines. These fish have a large, hor­i­zon­tal mouth and ca­nine-like teeth used for feed­ing on fish as adults. Saugers are closely re­lated to walleyes, though saugers tend to be smaller. Three key char­ac­ter­is­tics help iden­tify walleyes and saugers in the field: first, saugers have black spots on their first dor­sal fin. Walleyes lack these spots, but have a black mem­brane that forms a spot be­tween the last two to three spines on their first dor­sal fin. Sec­ond, saugers have a dis­tinct, dark col­oration in blotches, or sad­dles, which ex­tends down most of their sides. Walleyes have much lighter ver­ti­cal bars that are found on the upper por­tion of their sides, rarely ex­tend­ing below the lat­eral line. Fi­nally, walleyes have a white spot at the bot­tom of their cau­dal fin. Saugers lack this spot. Ad­di­tion­ally, saugers have scales on their cheek that are lack­ing in walleyes. Saugers may ex­hibit min­i­mal sex­ual di­mor­phism. Adult fe­males may be slightly larger than adult males in some pop­u­la­tions. Other pop­u­la­tions lack any sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in size. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger", 2013a; "Sauger", 2013b; "Sauger (Sander canaden­sis)", 2013)

• Other Physical Features
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike
• female larger

• Range length

  296 to 635 mm

  11.65 to 25.00 in

• Average length

  330 mm

  12.99 in

De­vel­op­ment

Saugers reach ma­tu­rity after two to eight years. This is pri­mar­ily de­pen­dent upon cli­mate, often as­so­ci­ated with lat­i­tude and the avail­abil­ity of prey. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger", 2013b)

Re­pro­duc­tion

Saugers are highly mi­gra­tory fish and may travel hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters to spawn. They re­pro­duce by broad­cast spawn­ing. Eggs are fer­til­ized by males as they are re­leased over rocks, gravel, or sand. Saugers pro­vide no parental care and do not build nests. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger (Sander canaden­sis)", 2013)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Saugers re­pro­duce by broad­cast spawn­ing, or re­leas­ing eggs and sperm into the water col­umn. Spawn­ing typ­i­cally oc­curs at night over gravel or sand in run­ning wa­ters lo­cated at the heads of large trib­u­taries or im­me­di­ately below dams. Re­pro­duc­tion typ­i­cally oc­curs be­tween March and May in streams or lakes de­pend­ing on the ge­o­graphic lo­ca­tion. Fe­male saugers typ­i­cally lay be­tween 10,000 and 50,000 eggs. Eggs are semi-buoy­ant and are 1.3 mm in di­am­e­ter on av­er­age. Eggs hatch be­tween 9 and 21 days de­pend­ing on water tem­per­a­ture and re­ceive no parental care. One study demon­strated that eggs hatch after about 21 days at a water tem­per­a­ture of 8.3°C. Saugers may in­ter­breed with walleyes and pro­duce vi­able hy­brids known as saugeyes. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger", 2013b)

• Key Reproductive Features
• seasonal breeding
• sexual
• fertilization
  • external
• broadcast (group) spawning

• Breeding interval

  These fish breed once a year.

• Breeding season

  Saugers breed in the spring, from March to May.

• Range number of offspring

  4,200 to 50,000

• Range time to hatching

  9 to 21 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  2 to 8 years

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  2 to 8 years

Saugers do not pro­vide any parental care to their eggs or young. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011)

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement

Lifes­pan/Longevity

In the wild, saugers have an ex­pected lifes­pan of 2 to 13 years, de­pend­ing on their habi­tat. Their ex­pected lifes­pan typ­i­cally in­creases from south to north through­out their range. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Sauger", 2013a)

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  2 to 13 years

Be­hav­ior

Saugers are most ac­tive in sit­u­a­tions with low lev­els of light. They are pri­mar­ily cre­pus­cu­lar and noc­tur­nal feed­ers. This be­hav­ior is aided by a highly-de­vel­oped re­flec­tive layer be­hind their retina, the tape­tum lu­cidum, which en­ables saugers to sight feed in low light en­vi­ron­ments. When they are ac­tive dur­ing the day, saugers are found in water with high tur­bid­ity. Saugers are one of the most mi­gra­tory per­cids, and can travel hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters for spawn­ing. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Sauger", 2013a)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• nocturnal
• crepuscular
• motile
• migratory

Home Range

Saugers are a highly mi­gra­tory species that can travel hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters to spawn. In the spring, these fish travel 5 to 350 kilo­me­ters to their spawn­ing grounds. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; Jaeger, et al., 2005)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Saugers de­tect mo­tion and vi­bra­tions in the water with a com­plete lat­eral line. They are vi­sual preda­tors that often feed in low-light or tur­bid en­vi­ron­ments using their highly-de­vel­oped tape­tum lu­cidum, a re­flec­tive layer found be­hind their reti­nas. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Sauger", 2013a)

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

Saugers con­sume a va­ri­ety of or­gan­isms through­out their life cycle, in­clud­ing smaller fish, in­sects and other in­ver­te­brates, and crus­taceans. Be­fore they have com­pletely ab­sorbed their yolk sac, saugers begin feed­ing on zoo­plank­ton. One study in­di­cates that saugers be­tween 12 to 50 mm in length pri­mar­ily con­sume Daph­nia as well as lar­vae of other or­gan­isms. As they grow, they tran­si­tion to ben­thic in­ver­te­brates for a short time prior to be­com­ing pis­civ­o­rous. As large ju­ve­niles and adults, saugers are al­most ex­clu­sively pis­civ­o­rous, pri­mar­ily feed­ing on fish. Saugers eat a va­ri­ety of fish species de­pend­ing on what is avail­able in the habi­tat. Based on stud­ies of the stom­ach con­tents of adult saugers, their prey in­cludes giz­zard shad, young wall­eye, trout-perch, yel­low perch, white bass, bur­bots, sun­fishes, emer­ald shin­ers, and many other species. In over­lap­ping habi­tats, walleyes and saugers may pre­fer dif­fer­ent fish species, or saugers may feed at a greater depth than walleyes. These mech­a­nisms re­duce com­pe­ti­tion be­tween the species. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger", 2013a; "Sauger (Sander canaden­sis)", 2013)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods

• Animal Foods
• fish
• insects
• aquatic crustaceans
• zooplankton

Pre­da­tion

Saugers es­cape pre­da­tion with their cryp­tic, cam­ou­flage col­oration. These fish are preyed upon by larger fish and birds in­clud­ing dou­ble-crested cor­morants. Walleyes, a closely re­lated species, are known to be preyed on by yel­low perch, small­mouth bass, rain­bow smelt, bull­heads, bur­bots, and north­ern pike when they are small and by yel­low perch, spot­tail shin­ers, stonecats, and white suck­ers as eggs. (Bar­ton, 2011; Hob­son, et al., 1989)

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic

• Known Predators

  • double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

As both preda­tors and prey, saugers have a large im­pact on their ecosys­tem. Saugers may also be par­a­sitized by 90 dif­fer­ent species of Pro­to­zoa, trema­todes, ces­todes, and ne­ma­todes. Un­like walleyes, their close rel­a­tives, saugers are much more likely to be preyed upon by ne­ma­todes and trema­todes. (Bar­ton, 2011)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Saugers are con­sid­ered im­por­tant game fish and food in many areas. While they have some com­mer­cial and recre­ational value, they are less val­ued than their rel­a­tives, walleyes. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known neg­a­tive ef­fects of saugers on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Saugers are listed as threat­ened by the State of Michi­gan, but are abun­dant in other parts of their range. How­ever, it is gen­er­ally ac­cepted that the over­all sauger pop­u­la­tion is de­clin­ing pri­mar­ily be­cause dams re­duce the avail­abil­ity of their pre­ferred large, tur­bid river habi­tat. In ad­di­tion, dams may pre­vent mi­gra­tion, block ac­cess to spawn­ing grounds, change the tem­per­a­ture and hy­drol­ogy of rivers, and re­duce sed­i­ment loads. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  Threatened

Other Com­ments

Saugers were pre­vi­ously clas­si­fied in genus Sti­zoste­dion. They are often called "sand pick­erels" or "sand pike". Walleyes and saugers can in­ter­breed and pro­duce hy­brids known as "saugeyes". These hy­brids are most often the re­sult of a fe­male wall­eye and a male sauger mat­ing, but the op­po­site pair­ing may also occur. Some saugeyes are able to re­pro­duce with other saugeyes, saugers, or walleyes to pro­duce vi­able off­spring. Saugeyes share char­ac­ter­is­tics of both walleyes and saugers, but can be iden­ti­fied by the black streaks (rather than spots) on their first dor­sal fin. Most saugeyes orig­i­nate from hatch­ery pro­grams; man­agers raise hy­brids be­cause they grow fast and, un­like ei­ther par­ent species, will con­sume ar­ti­fi­cial foods. ("Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger", 2011; "Fishes of Wis­con­sin", 1983; "Sauger", 2013b)

Con­trib­u­tors

Amanda Har­vanek (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Lau­ren Sal­lan (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Jeff Scha­ef­fer (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Leila Si­cil­iano Mar­tina (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff.

Ref­er­ences

2011. Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger. Bethesda, MD: Amer­i­can Fish­eries So­ci­ety.

1983. Fishes of Wis­con­sin. Madi­son, WI: Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin.

Vir­ginia De­part­ment of Game and In­land Fish­eries. 2013. "Sauger (Sander canaden­sis)" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 14, 2013 at http://​www.​dgif.​virginia.​gov/​wildlife/​fish/​details.​asp?​fish=010215.

Con­ser­va­tion Com­mis­sion of Mis­souri. 2013. "Sauger" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 23, 2013 at http://​mdc.​mo.​gov/​discover-nature/​field-guide/​sauger.

Ohio DNR. 2013. "Sauger" (On-line). A to Z Species Guide. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 17, 2013 at http://​www.​dnr.​state.​oh.​us/​Home/​species_​a_​to_​z/​SpeciesGuideIndex/​sauger/​tabid/​6749/​Default.​aspx.

Min­nesota De­part­ment of Nat­ural Re­sources. 2013. "Sauger" (On-line). Fishes of Min­nesota: Fact Sheets. Ac­cessed De­cem­ber 09, 2013 at http://​www.​dnr.​state.​mn.​us/​fish/​sauger.​html.

2014. "Sauger" (On-line). Mon­tana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 14, 2013 at http://​fwp.​mt.​gov/​education/​angler/​mayClub/​sauger.​html.

Bar­ton, B. 2011. Bi­ol­ogy, Man­age­ment, and Cul­ture of Wall­eye and Sauger. Bethesda, MD: Amer­i­can Fish­eries So­ci­ety.

Hob­son, K., R. Knap­ton, W. Ly­sack. 1989. Pop­u­la­tion, Diet and Re­pro­duc­tive Suc­cess of Dou­ble-crested Cor­morants Breed­ing on Lake Win­nipego­sis, Man­i­toba, in 1987. Colo­nial Wa­ter­birds, 12:2: 191-197.

Jaeger, M., A. Zale, T. McMa­hon, B. Schmitz. 2005. Sea­sonal Move­ments, Habi­tat Use, Ag­gre­ga­tion, Ex­ploita­tion, and En­train­ment of Saugers in the Lower Yel­low­stone River: An Em­pir­i­cal As­sess­ment of Fac­tors Af­fect­ing Pop­u­la­tion Re­cov­ery. North Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Fish­eries Man­age­ment, 25:4: 1550-1568.

John­son, K., D. Ober­lie. 2008. Habi­tat Use and Move­ment Pat­terns by Adult Saugers from Fall to Sum­mer in an Unim­pounded Small-River Sys­tem. North Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Fish­eries Man­age­ment, 28/2: 360-367.

Leggett, W. 2012. Abun­dance, growth, and life his­tory char­ac­ter­is­tics of sym­patric wall­eye (Sander vit­reus) and sauger (Sander canaden­sis) in Lake Win­nipeg, Man­i­toba. Jour­nal of Great Lakes Re­search, 38: 35-46.