Sculpin IDs please

[aviddiver.her]

I have a couple of Sculpins from San Miguel Channel Island, CA.

The first I'm pretty sure is a Female Scalyhead but I'd like comformation.

Same fish as first.

The second has me more stumped. I was acutally photographing the Hiltons Nudi and never saw the fish. All of my other photos are from the other side of the nudibranch so they only show the back of the head and tail. Too bad I didn't see the fish or I would have made sure to get it's mouth all the way in the photo

Scales on back but not head. Cirri on cheeks. Tons of gold on pectoal fins and on dorsal fin too!

[cardiver]

Wow. Great pics and amazing color!

[dwashbur]

The first may actually be a male scalyhead, going by the tufts on top of the head that aren't so visible in the top photo. The one providing a bridge for the Hilton's might be a padded, though I'm a little shaky on those.

[H20doctor]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaa California Has better Nudi's than us .... Nice pics ..

[Dusty2]

I'm thinking the fish with the nudi is a Red Irish lord but it's tough from that view point

[aviddiver.her]

Wow. Great pics and amazing color!

:biggrin: Thanks Ron

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaa California Has better Nudi's than us .... Nice pics ..

I suppose that depends upon what you call "better" . My understanding is your nudis are bigger :biggrin: . It looks like you don't have this one in particular. I have to drive 4-7 hours south to dive where we find them.

The first may actually be a male scalyhead, going by the tufts on top of the head that aren't so visible in the top photo. The one providing a bridge for the Hilton's might be a padded, though I'm a little shaky on those.

Hum, my understanding is the female Scalyheads have tufts but the males tufts are larger. Are these too large to be a female?

I considered Padded initially. But In my Humann ID book edition 2 it makes a point of the Padded Sculpins having a single cirrus at the corner of the jaw. In the photos that cirrus is very thin. This one looks like it has two fat cirri. So, I'm kind of leaning away from that.

I'm thinking the fish with the nudi is a Red Irish lord but it's tough from that view point

I'm thinking Red Irish Lord isn't likely either. They are considered rare in California and only to central California. This fish was at the very bottom of Central CA. Also, Red Irish Lords are 8-16 in. long. While this nudi was a rather large one, Behrens says max size is 50mm (2in). So I'm thinking this is a smaller fish.



Tonight I took another look at some of the other photos of this nudi. They were all from the back side so I got the back side of the fish in a couple of them. I'm starting to lean toward a Coralline Sculpin. Unfortunately they are uncommon to rare north of CA to the San Juans so many of you may not be able to help me with that one. The thing I'm looking at is the Coralline has a "small white spot centered on the base of the tail". I'm thinking that spot is visible in this photo, maybe?

Any other ideas? Thoughts?

[Greg Jensen]

My first impression is coralline for both. I'll look at them again tomorrow when I have my books in hand.

[Biodiversity_Guy]

My first thought was coralline also, but dismissed it, thinking the picture came from Washington waters.

Knowing it came from California, I am thinking it may well be a coralline. But will wait for the definitive answer from Greg...

[Greg Jensen]

After further consideration- I still think they are both corallines. The big difference in head cirri between the two specimens is interesting and similar to what we see here in Washington with smoothhead sculpins. I finally have a student here interested in working on this group and hopefully we'll figure out if this is something that varies with the sex of the fish.

[aviddiver.her]

So Greg, are you saying that the Coralline may have noticible cirri between and behind the eyes unlike previously thought? You do know this fish was in CA not WA right? Also, what about the big yellow spot on the dorsal fin. Is that not more like a scalyhead? I'm confused as to what would make the first one a Coralline .

[Greg Jensen]

We see scalyheads all the time up here, and his head doesn't look at all like one to me- for one, the snout is too long (more like that of a smoothhead). The cirri at the corner of the mouth tend to be thread-like in scalyheads, smoothheads, and paddeds, not flattened as they are in your two fish and in many pictures of corallines that I've seen.
I do think corallines can have noticeable cirri between and behind the eyes. The one in this picture from the Monterey Aquarium has cirri similar to your guy:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/anim ... ?id=780430
and the drawing in Eschmeyer et al shows a lot of cirri on the coralline.
They say the same thing about smoothheads, but they often have lots of cirri on top too. The term 'noticeable' leaves a lot of leeway for interpretation; I'd say the ones on the coralline in Gotshall's book are noticeable since they're still visible in such a small picture, for example. And certainly noticeable on the Monterey aquarium specimen.
Keep in mind, my first-hand experience is almost entirely with the species in the Pacific Northwest. Of those, your fish looks most like a smoothhead, but I've never seen one with cirri on the eye like that. The definitive way of separating smoothheads and corallines is by scale counts, which might be possible if you have a higher res image of the first picture.

[aviddiver.her]

Thanks Greg. The length of the snout was one thing that did not seem quite right to me either when looking at photos of the scalyheads. I've only got Humann's fish book to look at.

You may have been able to tell by the photos but one thing about the first one was it was rather large compared to the red one with the nudibranch. I'd say at least twice as long. To my eyes (underwater) it seemed like 6in long so I'd say it was probably 4-5in. As you can see it is as long as the star. That may make it more likely a smothhead?
I don't know how to count the scales so I'm not sure if they are countable in the larger res image or not. I'll try and post a larger image. I'm not sure how big the board will take. I've cropped out some of the extraneous stuff to help decrease the file size.

[Greg Jensen]

Unfortunately, I still can't count the scales. The size doesn't really help as both species top out at 5.5 inches.

My money is still on coralline.

[aviddiver.her]

Thanks Greg. I didn't figure the scales were going to be sharp enough to count. Even in my RAW image they are not any sharper.

For future information, how are scales counted? Are the "rows" from front to back or top to bottom? In the Humann/Deloach book it talks about "the longest oblique rows". To me, oblique is diagonal? What exactly does that mean on a fish?

[Greg Jensen]

Yes, they're referring to the diagonal rows of scales that slope from the front to the back, at about a 50 degree angle or so. Depending on the lighting and the size of the fish I often can't see them well enough (or at all) under water, so if there's any question about the identity I'll shoot a throw-away picture of just that area so I can check.

[aviddiver.her]

So, is that oblique line the ridge like line on some fishes that often has thread like extensions off of it like in this photo? Or is it just part of the other scales?

(Hopefully this is a snubnose 'cause that's the only ID I can find to fit it)

[nwscubamom]

I realize I'm a day late and a dollar short on this discussion, but for what it's worth, I completely agree that the pics are of Coralline Sculpins. I've seen quite a few and have pics of a few too. It's the head shape and snout that really jump out at me.

And yes, this last pic is of a Snubnose Sculpin.

Great shots, btw! Colorful and detailed.

- Janna )

[Dusty2]

So, is that oblique line the ridge like line on some fishes that often has thread like extensions off of it like in this photo? Or is it just part of the other scales?

(Hopefully this is a snubnose 'cause that's the only ID I can find to fit it)

Nice shot on the snub nose. I've never seen it or the coralline. Love these kind of discussions!

[dwashbur]

So, is that oblique line the ridge like line on some fishes that often has thread like extensions off of it like in this photo? Or is it just part of the other scales?

(Hopefully this is a snubnose 'cause that's the only ID I can find to fit it)

Nice shot on the snub nose. I've never seen it or the coralline. Love these kind of discussions!

We've never seen a coralline up here, but we did find a few during our stint in Monterey. I have no idea what that means, I just toss it out fwiw.

[Greg Jensen]

So, is that oblique line the ridge like line on some fishes that often has thread like extensions off of it like in this photo? Or is it just part of the other scales?

(Hopefully this is a snubnose 'cause that's the only ID I can find to fit it)

The threadlike extensions are on the lateral line. In the genus Artedius (e.g., coralline, smoothhead, scalyhead) the body scales are all above the lateral line. I've circled one of the oblique rows in your picture of a snubnose (not an Artedius, but similar to them.)

[aviddiver.her]

Ahh, now I get it :smt038 ! I was trying to make the oblique line all the way from the start of the scales at the front of the fish to the back end of the fish. Couldn't figure out how you would count that as the scales don't seem to line up that way .

Thanks a lot for your help in my understanding this better.