Spawning occurs in spring, May in New Jersey. Bluespotted sunfish feed on snails, Daphnia, Asellus, amphipods, and insects. Most of their feeding is done in close proximity to plants but they learn to take food from the surface in aquaria. Distribution of bluespotted sunfish in NY state. Dark dots represent where actual samples of bluespotted sunfish were taken.
White dots represent historic distributions.
A 284 KB image of the bluespotted sunfish is also available for download .