buffalo sculpin | The Marine Detective

Posts tagged ‘buffalo sculpin’

Five Fish

Five fish. One Dive.

Here are just five fabulous fish faces from my dive on July 12. These are just the fish who tolerated my taking photos. I am sharing with you to add to the sense of biodiversity hidden in these waters.

Also, I really value what I feel is mirrored back from these fish . . . the “What the hell are YOU and what are you doing here?” It’s good to feel like a visitor in others’ habitat rather than than a human at the epicentre of the universe. It’s below the waves, with the fish, that I best know my place and where I best feel humility. I also feel apology, not just for the disturbance of taking photos but as an ambassador for my species.

Sometimes I think as I look at the life below the surface “I’m trying. Please know, I’m trying”.

Thank you for caring and for trying too.

[Please note that I did not realize when compiling these photos that I have a blog on every species represented here. I suggest that the most insight would be gained from reading this blog first and then accessing the further links I provide here showing video, etc.]

Fish #1
Male Kelp Greenling with a Striped Sunflower Star to his right.

This species seems to so often be chasing one another and they have extraordinary courtship where the males change colour. Males will guard the fertilized eggs.

Video of the courtship is in my blog “Kelp Greenling Colour and Courtship” at this link.

Photo above is another perspective on the same fish. Note that the bright orange life you see here are animals, not plants. They are Orange Hydroids. The soft coral beside the Kelp Greenling’s head is Red Soft Coral.

Fish #2
Quillback Rockfish

Quillbacks, like so many of BC’s 34 rockfish species, have been over-exploited.

Rockfish are slow to mature, and are very localized in where they live. Therefore, they are particularly vulnerable to overfishing.

As divers, we’ve seen how Rockfish Conservation Areas can make a real difference for the number, diversity and size of rockfish.

There is no egg-guarding in this species because the young develop inside the females and are born into the water i.e. they are viviparous.

Please see my previous blog “Rockfish Barotrauma” at this link on the importance of Rockfish Conservation Areas and also on how to reverse what happens to rockfish when they are brought up from depth i.e. how to easily reverse barotrauma.

Quillback Rockfish = Sebastes maliger to 61 cm.

Fish Face #3
Lingcod

Lingcod males also guard the fertilized eggs. They are extraordinary large masses that look like Styrofoam. We survey for the egg masses each year to get a sense of potential recovery since this species was overexploited. It’s believed the same males guard eggs in the same spot year upon year. This again helps understanding of how many fish have homes whereby fishing intensely in one area can lead easily to overexploitation. My blog “Fastidious, Fanged Fathers” at this link shows the egg masses with information on Ocean Wise’s Lingcod Egg Mass Survey.

Lingcod = Ophiodon elongatus, females larger, to 1.5 m.

Fish Face #4
Buffalo Sculpin

Yes, this is a fish, not a rock with eyes.

There is so little understanding about how species like this can change their colour as they do.

It won’t surprise you that the most research is done on “commercially important” species with regards to stock management. Males also guard the fertilized eggs in this species. See my blog “Buffalos Mating Underwater” at this link for photos showing the diversity of colour / camouflage and for photos of the eggs.

Buffalo Sculpin = Enophrys bison to 37 cm long.

Fish #5
Red Irish Lord

I must have disturbed this Red Irish Lord with my bubbles for him/ her to be easily visible like this. They are usually fully camouflaged.

Note the shell the Red Irish Lord is on. This is a Giant Rock Scallop whose shell has been drilled into by Boring Sponge. Astounding isn’t it to think that Giant Rock Scallops (Crassadoma gigantea to 25 cm across) start off as plankton; are free-swimming to ~2.5 cm; and then attach to the bottom with their right side and can grow to 25 cm. They may live as long as 50 years but there have been problems with human over-harvesting.

Red Irish Lord parents take turns caring for their fertilized eggs (Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus; up to 51 cm).

Please see my blog “In the Eye of the Lord – the Red Irish Lord That Is” at this link.

Lingcod = Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus, to 51 cm long.

And the final photo and thoughts for you dear reader:

Same Red Irish Lord as in the photo above.

Under the canopy, beams of light shimmering through as they would in a forest of trees, bringing energy to the algae which feed the depths. This is all at only 5m depth. This is life you could imagine when you close your eyes and think of the dark sea off our coast. This is the world where Humpbacks feed, where families of Orca follow the same lineages of Chinook Salmon generation after generation, where species exist without our knowledge let alone our respect. This is their world. This is the world to which all life on earth is connected.

Five fish. One dive. A world connected.

Buffalos Mating . . . Underwater!

That’s right, it’s mating season for buffalos . . . buffalo SCULPINS that is!

Now that I’ve lured you to this posting with the procreation of a huge, shaggy terrestrial mammal on your mind . . . let me show you the spawn of this wondrous fish.

The buffalo sculpin – Enophrys bison – has earned the association with buffalo/bison due to the horn-like spine found on each gill plate (operculum). The species can be up to 37 cm long.

Male Buffalo Sculpin guarding eggs. April 1, 2012. Photo © Jackie Hildering.

As is the case for many species in the sculpin family, male Buffalo Sculpins guard the eggs from predators and fan them with their pectoral fins to aerate them and stop growth of algae / bacteria. Sometimes they guard the eggs laid by multiple females. When you consider that a female can lay between 19,000 and 32,000 eggs, the males have a lot of fertilizing and guarding work to do! Their guard duty lasts 5 to 6 weeks until the eggs hatch.

Another male guarding eggs on April 1, 2012. If you look carefully, you will see the horn-like spines on the fish’s right gill plate. It is these horn-shaped gill protrusions that led to this species getting both its scientific and common name. Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Same male as in the image above. Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Many of the photos below show how you the males lie with their flat heads directly upon a cascade of eggs. The clusters of eggs laid in the Spring allow me to find this incredibly camouflaged fish much more easily than I normally could. When I see a golden, orange or greenish shiny mass of eggs, I know a male Buffalo Sculpin has to be very near by. The bright colour of the eggs suggests that they might be toxic to many species, further protecting them from predation.

Very interestingly too, there is a species of fish known to parasitize on the care provided to the fertilized eggs by Buffalo Sculpins. Spinynose Sculpins (Asemichthys taylori) will lay their eggs on top of the Buffalo Sculpin eggs. The Spinynose Sculpin eggs will hatch faster and it is even possible that the presence of the eggs slows the development of the Buffalo Sculpin eggs. This “nesting parasitism”, is a “behavior previously unknown among marine fishes. This study is the first report of interspecific nesting for marine fishes” (Kent, Fisher, & Marliave, 2011).

As you can see, the Buffalo Sculpins’ red, brown and pink colouration makes them very difficult to discern from the similarly brilliantly coloured life around them. They will remain absolutely still so as not to give away their presence. Their relative, the Red Irish Lord, has the same survival strategy. (See this previous blog item for photos and information on the Red Irish Lord.)

The camouflage, in addition to reducing the risk of predation by bigger fish and seals, allows the Buffalo Sculpin to be a very successful ambush hunter of shrimp, crabs, amphipods and small fish. It has been suggested that they eat mainly algae since this has so often been found in their gut but I am willing to bet that the algae ends up in their stomachs as a result of the buffalo sculpins grabbing prey ON the algae!

A cascade of eggs below this brilliantly coloured male Buffalo sculpin’s chin, April 1st., 2012 See below. He as still guarding these eggs on April 21st and was guarding other eggs on May 6th, 2012.
Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

The two differently coloured egg masses suggest that this male is guarding the eggs from two different females. April 1, 2012.
Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

The same male guarding eggs 3 weeks later. April 21st, 2012.
Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Same male with a new egg mass – May 6, 2012. Checked in on him on May 20th, 2012 and he was no longer guarding eggs. Photo ©Jackie Hildering

Range: Monterey California to Kodiak Island, Gulf of Alaska. Most often found to a depth of 20 m but have been found to 227 m.

Spawn: February and March.

Sources: Kent, Daniel & Fisher, John & Marliave, Jeffrey. (2011). Interspecific nesting in marine fishes: Spawning of the spinynose sculpin, Asemichthys taylori, on the eggs of the buffalo sculpin, Enophrys bison. Ichthyological Research – ICHTHYOL RES. 58. 10.1007/s10228-011-0223-5.

Whoa! Photo below is of one male Buffalo Sculpin guarding the egg masses of at least 3 different females.
February 2018. ©Jackie Hildering.

The following photos of male Buffalo Sculpins guarding eggs are intended to show how varied both the colouration of the fish and the eggs can be.