The white bass looks quite a bit like a shortened version of its larger relative, the striped bass (Morone saxatilis). It has the same silvery white sides and black stripes. It differs most noticeably in being shorter and stockier with a smaller head, and the dorsal fins are set closer together. They can be distinguished from the yellow bass (M. mississippiensis), by its more silvery color and regular, unbroken stripes as well as by its protruding, pugnacious looking, basslike lower jaw (in the yellow bass the jaws are about equal). It can be distinguished from the white perch by the latters lack of prominent stripes on the sides (though stripes may be present in very small juveniles).