Northwest Dive Club

Hi guys. I am still learning the marine life around here, and was wondering if someone could id this fishy for me. He is at 0:34 and 2:45, defending his eggs in Cove 2.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=298K8493 ... ature=plcp[/youtube]

Thanks!

Lingcod, member of the Greenling family. Commonly aggressive when the males are protecting the eggs. Cabezon are even more aggressive - they're, appropriately so, the "big headed fish" with "frillies" as quasi "horns." Stay away from "styrofoam" this time of year!

Sounder wrote:Lingcod, member of the Greenling family. Commonly aggressive when the males are protecting the eggs. Cabezon are even more aggressive - they're, appropriately so, the "big headed fish" with "frillies" as quasi "horns." Stay away from "styrofoam" this time of year!

Thanks Sounder, but not the lingcod. It's a small fish blending in with the background, and its eggs are a few inches in front of it. It's at around 0:34 in the video.

Actually, if you check the time stamps he referenced, I believe he's asking about the Buffalo Sculpin. And I don't believe that's an egg mass in front of it.

ktb wrote:Actually, if you check the time stamps he referenced, I believe he's asking about the Buffalo Sculpin. And I don't believe that's an egg mass in front of it.

Buffalo Sculpin hey? Sweet! Why don't you believe it's an egg mass in front of it?

At 0:34, Thats Red Irish Lord AFAIK..

(Courtesy GratefulDiver Bob for this pic linked to his site..)

Hi BillyD,

I'm no expert but that fish looks to me to be a Red Irish Lord. The eyes appear larger and wider set than a Buffalo Sculpin; also the snout looks a bit longer and more tapered. Finally, according to Andy Lamb, this is a little early in the season for a Buff to be guarding eggs but it's just about perfect timing for a RIL.

Protectively yours,

Alex

kdupreez wrote:At 0:34, Thats Red Irish Lord AFAIK..

Koos, You are correct. But it still doesn't look like eggs to me . . .

I agree; it looks like some type of sponge rather than eggs. That's also a red irish lord that is being eaten by the seastar later in the video.

Greg Jensen wrote:I agree; it looks like some type of sponge rather than eggs. That's also a red irish lord that is being eaten by the seastar later in the video.

- This was my next question, excellent forsight

Thanks Alex, Koos, and Greg, Red Irish Lord looks about right. It's kind of hard to see in the video, but I was pretty sure they were eggs when I saw them. I have seen cabezon's and greenling's eggs, these were much smaller but somewhat similar.

Cool video. I almost soiled my drysuit this morning when I was poking around at 20 ft and found my face about 20" from a shifty-eyed, mean, old ling. I used the force to keep him from biting my face.

diverden wrote:Cool video. I almost soiled my drysuit this morning when I was poking around at 20 ft and found my face about 20" from a shifty-eyed, mean, old ling. I used the force to keep him from biting my face.

Mind-over-Ling is a powerful tool.

The ling from this video was funny. I was filming the sunstar and he swam right up to me and and just parked right there, pretty much right on top the sunstar, eyeballing me. I love their shifty eyes.

When Ling do that it is generally egg laying time. I've had more than one cool dive in the past where I was like "Holy crap, he just came up and posed! Sweet!" He was actually warning me away from the egg masses he was guarding and was preparing to clean my clock if I so much as twitched!

Actually, I suspect that IS an egg mass in front of that RIL at 34 seconds in. It's the right size, shape and color, and he seems very interested in it. It looks similar to a mass that we came upon a couple of years ago; when my daughter got too close to it, the RIL actually swam up and bit her hand. Hard to do any damage without teeth, but he gave it his best shot.

Anyway, one vote for "yes, that's a mass of eggs."

Kind of hard to tell but I don't think they don't look like eggs to me. The other RIL egg masses I've seen have looked similar to Greenling eggs but in all sorts of cool colors.

WylerBear wrote:Kind of hard to tell but I don't think they don't look like eggs to me. The other RIL egg masses I've seen have looked similar to Greenling eggs but in all sorts of cool colors.

All the ones I've seen were yellow like this, but I certainly won't go to the stake for the identification.

I've been known to be wrong, too.