Flier

The flier is a small, strongly compressed species of sunfish which has a moderately sized, oblique mouth. The dorsal fin has 11–13 spines and 12–14 soft rays while the anal fin has 7–8 spines and 13–15 soft rays. It has a lateral line and the scales are ctenoid. The flanks have a scattering of dark spots, the underside is pale, and the upperparts are olive in color. There is a vertical dark line through the eye which continues below the eye in what has been described as a "teardrop". Fish of a standard length less than around 45 millimeters (1.8 in) have an obvious dark eyespot, or ocellus, which has a reddish margin on the soft part of the dorsal fin. The pectoral and pelvic fins are dusky with paler reticulations. The maximum total length recorded is 29.2 centimeters (11.5 in) but they are more commonly around 13 centimeters (5.1 in) and the maximum published weight is 1.35 pounds.

The flier is found in the southern part of the United States along the Atlantic seaboard from the Potomac River drainage in Maryland, where it was most likely introduced, to central Florida. It is then found along the Gulf of Mexico drainages as far west as the Trinity River in Texas, and then north in Mississippi River system to above the fall line in southern Illinois and southern Indiana.

The flier was first formally described by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1756–1825) in 1801 as Labrus macropterus with the type locality given as South Carolina. In 1829 Georges Cuvier placed it in the genus Centrarchus. The genus Centrarchus is the sister taxon to the Archoplites and in turn these two are sister to Pomoxis. The generic name is a compound of the Greek kentron meaning "sting" and archos meaning "anus", a reference to the long spines in the anal fin. The specific name macropterus is also Greek and means "long fin".