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-- B a t f i s h e s --
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| Q 1. | ||
| What fish hooks its prey? |
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| Q 2. | ||
| What is the batfish? |
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| Q 3. | ||
| I understand that there is a deep sea fish in which the male becomes permanently attached to the female. Could you please give me some further information on this? |
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| Q 4. | ||
| While swimming at Miami Beach I picked up some floating seaweed and was surprised to see a small fish swim out from this mass. The fish was brown and white in color and appeared to have fringed fins. Can you tell me what kind of fish this was and if its occurrence in the seaweed is unusual? |
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| Q 5. | ||
| Late at night I caught a 10-inch batfish thrashing about on the shore. I have heard that this fish walks on the bottom with its "apparent" limbs. Is it possible that it came on shore purposely as a result of limbs, which may be an evolutionary step toward an amphibian, or was it just stranded by an ebb tide? |
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| Q 6. | ||
| Recently, while skin diving just north of Boston, I encountered a large angler-like fish that was about 4 feet long. When I went down to investigate, it made some threatening moves and seemed rather aggressive. Since I did not have a spear, and its teeth looked very large, I chose to leave the area. Upon inquiry, 1 learned that the fish I met is called a goosefish. Could you give me some more information on this animal? |
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| Q 7. | ||
| My father recently found part of a jaw on a beach at Quonochontaug, Rhode Island, and we were told that it belonged to a goosefish. Is there such a fish, and is it normally found close to shore? |
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| Q 8. | ||
| Enclosed is a drawing of a fish that I found in a tidal pool in Hawaii. This fish appears to be developing into a reptile. It is very slow and cumbersome and its stomach feet enable it to "walk around" in jumping motions. Its mouth resembles that of a piranha. Can you tell me its name and how deep it goes in the water? |
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| Q 9. | ||
| Enclosed is a drawing of a fish that we saw in a tidal pool on the ocean side at Islamorada, Florida. |
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| Q 10. | ||
| While diving off the south coast of Jamaica, we disturbed one large and two much-smaller frogfishes camouflaged among some weeds. When the larger fish moved across the bottom, the small fishes followed and attempted to regroup with the larger fish. Could this have been a parent with its offspring? |
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| Q 11. | ||
| In a telecast some years ago, I remember a description of a fish which attaches itself to another fish, the two eventually growing together. Is this possible? |
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| Q 12. | ||
| For the past year or so, monkfish has been advertised as "the poor man’s lobster" I have been unable to find the name monkfish in my reference books. Is there such a fish? |
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| Q 13. | ||
| While snorkeling off Caye Caulker, Belize, I observed a strange creature on a sandy ledge in a few meters of water about 15 meters offshore. Its head was quite large with reddish/orange color on the mouth area, its tail was similar to a skate's, and its main body was covered with sharp-looking nodules. Its legs were reminiscent of a chicken wing, with the back ones doing all the work, either walking slowly or swimming. The creature had breathing holes, one on either side, which opened and closed every three or four seconds. Can you identify it? |
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| Q 14. | ||
| Some restaurants offer monkfish on theirmenus. Is there really a monkfish, or is this name used only for marketing purposes? |
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| Q&A 1. | What fish hooks its prey? |
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| The deep-sea anglerfish, Lasiognathus saccostoma, employs one of the devices used by human anglers in the capture of fish. Attached to the head of this weird but small fish is a flexible spine ending in a filament terminating in a bulbous “bait” tipped with three recurved spines, with which it is believed to snare other fishes that may be attracted to it. The upper jaw of this particular fish is so large that it turns partially inside out when the mouth is closed, revealing a fringe of needle-like teeth. |
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| Q&A 2. | What is the batfish? |
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| The bat-fish, Qgocephalus, is one of the strangest of living fishes, .as well as one of the most sluggish. Its fins are thick, jointed, and remarkably limblike, and the fish crawls about on the sea floor like a toad. There are two common shallow-water species occuring locally, the short-nosed batfish, and the smaller and rarer long-nosed batfish. An example of the short-nosed species, Qgocephalus radiatus, was recently captured in shallow water in front of the new Marine Laboratory building at Virginia Key. The fish which measures about 8 inches long, is now thriving in a tank provided with running sea water at the laboratory. |
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| Q&A 3. | I understand that there is a deep sea fish in which the male becomes permanently attached to the female. Could you please give me some further information on this? Minden, Nebraska |
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| The fish to which you refer is the deep sea fish, Photocorynus spiniceps, a member of thc Ceratioid Angler-fishes, inhabitants of the mid-waters of the oceans. The relationship between the sexes in Photocorynus is unique among vertebrates. The discovery of these relationships was made about 30 years ago when some of these specimens were dredged up off the deep waters of Panama (300 to 1300 fathoms or 1800 to 7800 feet). All the large free-swimming individuals captured have proved to be females. The males are dwarfs and spend the greater part of their lives as parasites upon the females. A fish taken near Ireland was 40 inches in length and the attached male was about four inches, the one being about a thousand times the size of the other. Another female, about two and a half inches, had a tiny male, two-fifths of an inch in length attached to the top of her head above the right eye. This remarkable relationship seems to have been evolved as a result of the unusual conditions faced by these fishes. Living as they do in comparative darkness of the middle layers of the ocean, sluggish in their movements and solitary in their habits, the chance of a mature fish finding a mate of its own species might be small. This difficulty is overcome by the male, almost as soon as it is hatched, seeking the female, and remaining attached to her body for the rest of his life. The site selected for attachment is quite haphazard, sometimes being on the abdomen, sometimes on the side or on the head, or in the region of the gill opening below the spine or gill cover. Occasionally more than one male becomes attached to a female. Having gripped the female with his mouth, the lips and tongue of the male apparently unite with her skin, and the two become completely fused. The mouth, jaws, teeth, fins and gills of the tiny male, and actually all organs except those associated with reproduction, degenerate, and he is nourished by the blood of the female. The Ceratioid fishes or sea devils, as they are known, are uniformly blackish in color. They are degraded forms of the common angler fish (Lophius piscatorius) which is rather common around the New England and Middle Atlantic seaboard and which reaches a size of 40 pounds. The sea devils have bones which are extremely light and thin in texture, and frequently other parts, such as the skin, muscles and intestines are equally loose in texture when the specimens are brought to the surface from great depths. The first dorsal fin spine is developed into a lure for other marine creatures, in certain species, and in others this is further modified with a special luminous organ to attract prey. They probably are carnivorous and feed actively upon other fishes. |
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| Q&A 4. | While swimming at Miami Beach I picked up some floating seaweed and was surprised to see a small fish swim out from this mass. The fish was brown and white in color and appeared to have fringed fins. Can you tell me what kind of fish this was and if its occurrence in the seaweed is unusual? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
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| There is a family of curious tropical-oceanic fishes known as sargassum fishes, or frog fishes. They live chiefly among floating seaweed (Sargassum) and are well adapted to maneuver within this mass by using their peculiar armlike pectoral fins. As you noticed, the coloration of these fishes is a creamy white with the fins, head and body mottled with pale and darker shades of brown. The body bears small fleshy tags which are colored yellow. This coloration and the fringed appearance provide an effective camouflage while they are in masses of weed. The seaweed, of course, drifts far north sometimes, carried by the current of the Gulf Stream, and occasionally a specimen of these fishes also drifts along. Scientists from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, have from time to time recorded one species, Histrio pictus, from locations near their laboratory and fisherman have found this species on at least two occasions over the Georges Bank. At the Miami Marine Laboratory we are often called upon to identify specimens of sargassum fish found by bathers in circumstances such as you describe. |
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| Q&A 5. | Late at night I caught a 10-inch batfish thrashing about on the shore. I have heard that this fish walks on the bottom with its "apparent" limbs. Is it possible that it came on shore purposely as a result of limbs, which may be an evolutionary step toward an amphibian, or was it just stranded by an ebb tide? Key West, Florida |
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| Batfishes are common in shore waters of southern Florida. They are sluggish species that move slowly along the bottom using mainly their pelvic fins. Sometimes, during periods of very low tide, they become stranded and this undoubtedly explains the occurrence you describe. They are entirely unrelated to amphibians and to the primitive fishes that gave rise to amphibians. It is not their normal behavior to leave the water. |
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| Q&A 6. | Recently, while skin diving just north of Boston, I encountered a large angler-like fish that was about 4 feet long. When I went down to investigate, it made some threatening moves and seemed rather aggressive. Since I did not have a spear, and its teeth looked very large, I chose to leave the area. Upon inquiry, 1 learned that the fish I met is called a goosefish. Could you give me some more information on this animal? Boston, Massachusetts |
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| The goosefishes are found in all tropical and temperate waters of the world. On the American Atlantic coast the species Lophius americanus occurs from Newfoundland to Brazil, and this is most likely the one you saw. These repulsive fishes are among the largest of the anglers, with some reaching a length of 4 feet and a weight of 45 pounds. There is a record of one that weighed 75 pounds. Their meat is edible, and they are marketed as food in Europe, Japan and other areas. Spawning takes place during the spring and summer. The eggs, which float at the surface, are embedded in a sticky, jelly-like mass that may measure 40 feet in length and 2 feet in width. The strange looking larval goosefishes have extremely long ventral fins, which diminish in size as the fish grows. |
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| Q&A 7. | My father recently found part of a jaw on a beach at Quonochontaug, Rhode Island, and we were told that it belonged to a goosefish. Is there such a fish, and is it normally found close to shore? Yonkers, New York |
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| The goosefish Lophius piscatorius (also called Lophius americanus) is a large flattened anglerfish that commonly comes into shallow water and is caught by fishermen casting from jetties, docks, and beaches. It is also caught in nets in the Bay of Fundy. The catches are usually discarded on the beach, and the bones are fairly common in the strand lines. The jaws of goosefish attract attention because of their long teeth. Member R.S. of Northport, New York, recently reported the stranding of a number of goosefish on the south shore of Long Island Sound. The goosefish prefers cold water, and migrates to increasingly deeper water during the warm months. In the New York area, during the winter months, the fish is more abundant in the cool shoal waters. Since this large rather clumsy fish is not a strong swimmer, the strong North Atlantic storms that sweep these shores during the winter season may result in its being stranded. The stranded fish may have been damaged physically when trapped in very rough water, or may have swum into shallow bays during storm tides, only to be trapped when the water receded. Additional information on the goosefish can be obtained from Fishes of the Gulf of Maine by Bigelow and Schroeder (Fish and Wildlife Service, Fishery Bulletin No. 74, Volume-53), which is available- at most large public libraries. |
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| Q&A 8. | Enclosed is a drawing of a fish that I found in a tidal pool in Hawaii. This fish appears to be developing into a reptile. It is very slow and cumbersome and its stomach feet enable it to "walk around" in jumping motions. Its mouth resembles that of a piranha. Can you tell me its name and how deep it goes in the water? Sherbom, Massachusetts |
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| The fish that you illustrate is a frogfish, a member of a family of shallow-water fishes that lurk on the bottom and attract prey by extending a lure from the top of their head. Seven species of this group are known from Hawaiian waters. The color of all is quite variable and depends to a large extent on the background. It is, therefore, impossible to identify the species of fish you have without seeing a specimen. A photograph of the Pacific yellow angler Antennarius moluccensis is shown on page 271 of Living Fishes of the World by E. S. Herald (Doubleday and Co., 1961). This may be the species you have. |
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| Q&A 9. | Enclosed is a drawing of a fish that we saw in a tidal pool on the ocean side at Islamorada, Florida. Buffalo, New York |
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| Positive identification cannot be made without seeing either the fish or a good photograph of it, but the animal in your drawing is probably one of the many species of batfishes. Batfishes are rather grotesque in appearance, having a broad body with a flattened head. They do not swim as most fishes do, but use their pectoral and smaller ventral fins in the manner of limbs to trot, hop or jump sluggishly about the sea floor. Instead of scales, their skin is covered to varying degrees with bony tubercles or spines. The first dorsal spine is modified into a movable fishing lure, which the fish uses to attract its prey. Batfishes are usually less than a foot in length. They feed on smaller fishes, molluscs, crustaceans and worms. Batfishes occur around the world at tropical and temperate latitudes, and have no value to man except as aquarium fishes. |
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| Q&A 10. | While diving off the south coast of Jamaica, we disturbed one large and two much-smaller frogfishes camouflaged among some weeds. When the larger fish moved across the bottom, the small fishes followed and attempted to regroup with the larger fish. Could this have been a parent with its offspring? Kingston, Jamaica |
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| It is extremely unlikely that the two smaller frogfishes were offspring of the larger one. The frogfishes, family Antennariidae, produce floating eggs which, therefore, may drift long distances before hatching. The planktonic young then continue drifting before they finally settle to lead a benthic life. The chances of offspring settling near a parent are remote. There are several possible explanations for the behavior that you observed. Perhaps the two smaller fishes were males courting a larger female, or possibly they were approaching the larger fish for the purpose of regaining concealment. In regard to parental behavior of fishes, several freshwater fishes, notably the cichlids, have a prolonged period during which the adults care for the young. To the best of our knowledge, there are no marine fishes with comparable behavior. Further information on this subject can be found in Modes of Reproduction in Fishes by Charles M. Breder (Natural History Press, Garden City, New York, 1966). |
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| Q&A 11. | In a telecast some years ago, I remember a description of a fish which attaches itself to another fish, the two eventually growing together. Is this possible? Fayetteville, North Carolina |
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| The fish referred to was Photocorynus spiniceps, one of the ceratioid anglerfishes. Like most deep-sea fishes, these have a planktonic larval stage which develops in the relatively food-rich surface waters. At metamorphosis, they descend into the deeper waters, where the females develop into normal anglerfishes. The very small male, however, seeks out one of the much larger, mature females and bites onto it. Thus attached, the male slowly degenerates until it is literally a sperm-filled parasite living permanently attached to and nourished by the blood of the female. This type of a relationship has great survival value for the species for, when the female is ready to spawn, the male is always present, and the uncertain search for a male in the dark depths is unnecessary. |
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| Q&A 12. | For the past year or so, monkfish has been advertised as "the poor man’s lobster" I have been unable to find the name monkfish in my reference books. Is there such a fish? Columbus, Ohio |
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| Fishes sold as monkfish belong to the goosefish family Lophiidae. The species most likely sold in Ohio is Lophius americanus, which occurs from Newfoundland to North Carolina. Although goosefish has long been considered a delicacy in Europe, the demand for it in the United States has been minimal until recent years. This is probably due to the physical appearance of these fishes. In addition to being squat and rather ugly looking, goosefishes have a "fishing lure" on top of their head. This lure, a modified dorsal spine, can be wriggled to attract prey (see "A Commonly Caught Oddity," Sea Secrets, vol. 16, no. 6, November-December 1972). The only edible meat of the goosefish is in the tail section. The flesh is white and firm and similar to that of puffers. Goosefish can be sauteed, broiled, baked, poached, or cut into fingers and deep-fried tempura style. Angel sharks (Squatina spp.) are also commonly called monkfish, but since these sharks are not common anywhere it is unlikely that they are “the poor man's lobster." |
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| Q&A 13. | While snorkeling off Caye Caulker, Belize, I observed a strange creature on a sandy ledge in a few meters of water about 15 meters offshore. Its head was quite large with reddish/orange color on the mouth area, its tail was similar to a skate's, and its main body was covered with sharp-looking nodules. Its legs were reminiscent of a chicken wing, with the back ones doing all the work, either walking slowly or swimming. The creature had breathing holes, one on either side, which opened and closed every three or four seconds. Can you identify it? Washington, D.C. |
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| You saw one of the batfishes in the family Ogcocephalidae. Batfishes occur mostly in tropical waters and are found from the water's edge to at least 1,800 meters deep, The shallow-water species usually live in clear waters, in rocky or rubble areas, or near the edges of reefs. Batfishes are characterized by their broad flattened heads, stalked pectoral fins (front legs), and rodlike pelvic fins (back legs). They are slow and sluggish bottom dwellers and "walk" on their bony fins. The protuberance on the nose-the rostrum-has a small fishing lure. Batfishes breathe through gill openings in the axils of the pectoral fins. Their bodies, which range from under 15 to 38 centimeters in length depending on the species, are camouflages and armored above with bony tubercles and hairlike cirri. |
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| Q&A 14. | Some restaurants offer monkfish on theirmenus. Is there really a monkfish, or is this name used only for marketing purposes? Houston, Texas |
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| Fishes sold as monkfish belong to the goosefish family Lophiidae. The edible meat comes from the fish's tail section. The white, firm flesh can be sauteed, broiled, baked, poached, or cut into fingers and deep-fried tempura style. Europeans considered goosefish a delicacy long before most Americans learned to enjoy it. The physical appearance of these fishes probably causes some people to avoid eating them. Goosefishes not only look rather ugly, but carry a "fishing lure" on top of their head. They wriggle this lure-a modified dorsal spine-to attract their prey. |
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Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science Library
University of Miami, FL USA 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, Florida 33149 Phone: 305 421 4060 Fax: 305 421 9306 E-mail: libcirc@rsmas.miami.edu |
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