Striped Bass
(Morone saxatilis)
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Animal Type
Fish
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Exhibits
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Range
Atlantic Ocean
Overview
Walk past the Migrating exhibit in the Surviving Through Adaptation gallery, and you'll come face to face with Maryland's state fish! Striped bass, also known as rockfish, striper or linesider, are recognized by ... you guessed it, the horizontal stripes that cross their metallic silver scales. Aside from the stripes, their heads can have blue, brown or olive hues, while their undersides are typically silver or white.
Like salmon, striped bass spend parts of their lives migrating. They are anadromous, meaning they hatch in freshwater rivers or brackish estuaries. Most will spend a few years in freshwater rivers or brackish estuaries before heading to the ocean. Some, however, spend most of their lives in these inland waters. Once those that have migrated to the ocean mature, they will return to freshwater to spawn. Unlike salmon, they can spawn more than once, though they may not breed every year.
Quick Facts
Learn more about striped bass! Did you know it takes about two years for males to mature and four years for females? Both males and females can live up to 30 years.
Striped bass are found in the western Atlantic Ocean, from the mouths of Canada's St. Lawrence River to Florida's St. Johns and Suwannee Rivers. They live near the coastline as adults, migrating north and south between summer and winter. During spring, mature striped bass will enter coastal estuaries and rivers to spawn before returning to sea.
Striped bass are predatory fish. Insects, worms and small crustaceans make up their diet as juveniles; as adults, they consume invertebrates like crabs and squid, and other fishes, like hake, herring, menhaden, mummichogs and silversides.
Adult striped bass average between 20 and 35 inches in length, with females being larger than males. They typically weigh between 5 and 20 pounds.
As an important recreational and commercial fish, the striped bass population is carefully monitored. Their declining population in the Chesapeake Bay throughout the 1970s led Maryland to temporarily ban striped bass fishing in the mid-1980s. Within a decade, their numbers had rebounded—a testament to careful fishery management. Though considered stable, the population has fluctuated since the early 2000s. It's trended slightly downward in recent years as fewer juveniles have survived to adulthood. In the Chesapeake Bay, this is likely due to many factors: habitat loss, pollution, low oxygen levels and shifts in available prey.
Striped bass fall prey to fish-eating birds like osprey, larger fish like sharks and the invasive blue catfish, and humans.
Explore Exhibit Residents
Learn more about the animals that share an exhibit with this one.
Anemones (Actiniaria)
Sea anemones are named after and resemble flowers.
Spotfin Butterflyfish (Chaetodon ocellatus)
The black bar across this fish's eye confuses predators.
Peacock Mantis Shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus)
The shrimp’s own hard-shelled body is bursting with color—hues of bright red, green, orange and blue, and its forearms are covered in spots.
Longnose Gar (Lepisosteus osseus)
Gar's are known as living fossils
Longhorn Cowfish (Lactoria cornuta)
This charismatic fish is easily recognizable by its long horns that protrude from the front of its head.