Reproduction
In the southern parts of their range, golden shiners can start reproducing at 1 year of age; in Canada, first breeding is more commonly at 3 years of age. Females lay up to 200,000 sticky eggs each amid vegetation. There is no parental care. Occasionally, like a few other minnows, golden shiners can deposit their eggs in the occupied nests of pumpkinseed, largemouth bass or bowfin (the latter two, ironically, can be predators of shiners). This behaviour is called egg dumping and resembles the brood parasitism of birds such as cuckoos, inasmuch as the shiner eggs will benefit from the parental care that pumpkinseed, largemouth bass, and bowfin provide to the content of their nests. As opposed to parasitism by cuckoos, however, the parent's eggs do not suffer from the presence of parasitic eggs, and may actually benefit from a dilution effect when predators attack the brood.
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