Mississippi silverside

Open encyclopedia reference

Menidia audens, the Mississippi silverside, is a neotropical silverside native to Central North America, where it is found in east Texas, eastern Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Southeast Missouri, southwest Illinois, parts of western Kentucky and Tennessee, and South Central Kansas. The species has been introduced to California, Central Oklahoma, parts of western Kentucky, much of Tennessee, northeast Mississippi, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, and western North Carolina. Throughout most of its introduced range it is considered invasive and has displaced many native fishes due to competition for food, particularly zooplankton. the Mississippi silverside alongside the Inland silverside likely played a role in the extinction of the Clear lake splittail (Pogonichthys ciscoides), a fish once found in California's Clear lake and its tributaries. The Mississippi silverside has led the decline in populations of several other California native fishes, and has even been found to feed on the young of the endangered Delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus).

Wikipedia contributors, Menidia audens; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T07:56:21.137271+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Menidia audens Hay, 1882

Name authority

Hay, 1882

Common name

Mississippi silverside

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Teleostei

Order

Atheriniformes

Family

Atherinopsidae

Genus

Menidia

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Source habitat flags: Marine: no · Freshwater: yes · Terrestrial: no. These do not form a complete habitat description.

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. gigaclassActinopterygii
8. superclassActinopteri
9. classTeleostei
10. orderAtheriniformes
11. suborderAtherinopsoidei
12. familyAtherinopsidae Fitzinger, 1873
13. subfamilyMenidiinae Schultz, 1948
14. genusMenidia Bonaparte, 1836
15. speciesMenidia audens Hay, 1882

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Menidia. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 104 records assigned to Atherinopsidae.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. Hay, O. P. (1882). On a collection of fishes from the lower Mississippi Valley. Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission, v. 2 (for 1882): 57–75. Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3ZQKW. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.