Northwest Dive Club

There were two of these little guys next to each other. They looked like a snail fish to me but not like others that I have seen in this area. Any clues?

Though the color seems very washed out I believe it is a Tadpole Sculpin

Looks like a soft sculpin, Psychrolutes sigalutes. Similar to a tadpole sculpin and in the same genus.

Wow, I don't have either of those in my book. Cool! I haven't seen them before, assuming they aren't very common???

For sure! Probably as rare as the Spiny lumpsucker. I have only seen one in over 400 dives! Deffinatly one for your special finds book. This is what mine looked like

Chevayea wrote:There were two of these little guys next to each other. They looked like a snail fish to me but not like others that I have seen in this area. Any clues?

I saw this one at Redondo Friday night ... Hmmmm...

Tadpole sculpins are pretty common- I usually see them on night dives, sitting on top of large blades of brown algae. Between diving, beach seines and trawl work over the years I've seen hundreds of them, and they always seem to have the markings shown in Dusty's photo. But I've never found a soft sculpin. Someone else also had a picture of one of these not too long ago- I think it was from Redondo- and I was very jealous .
The fish on the glove IS a snailfish, and these are hard to id to species. I'm leaning toward a marbled (Liparis dennyi) but can't see the larger view on my slow home connection.

Here is another shot of that guy on the glove..

I'd still go with marbled snailfish for this little guy.

Hey Greg -

I'm still trying to get a handle on what to look for on Snailfish to ID them. What do you look for?

First thing I look at is whether there is a lobe on the front end of the dorsal fin or not- the only two common ones here lacking a lobe are showy and marbled. Showy have a proportionately smaller head and blunter face (also seem to have smaller nostrils)- to use scientific lingo, they're cuter. The way their dorsal and anal fins meet the tail differ, but the way they scrunch up their tails and curl them around themselves often makes it hard to see. And the upper edge of a showy's dorsal is much smoother- in marbled you can easily see where each ray pokes up. Small marbled can have a small lobe at the front- see the pic in Lamb/Hanby of a baby one.
Those are the 'easy' ones. The ones with a lobe on the front of the dorsal- (tidepool, lobefin, spotted) or slight lobes (slimy, slipskin) - I'm not sure can be id'd reliably underwater. They come down to things like dorsal fin ray counts and how far down the gill slits go relative to the pectoral fins. Given the color variability within some of these species, I have doubts as to whether that would be reliable as a character.

Snailfish?

Divergirls' is a marbled snailfish; cardiver's is probably the same but I can't be 100% certain when it has the dorsal fin completely scrunched down.
Marbled and showy snailfish seem to be the ones divers encounter most often, and as you can see they are pretty calm fish. The more common ones with lobed fins (tidepool & lobefin) often only give you a fleeting glimpse as they tear off into algae or under a rock and you'd never get one to sit in your glove.

Greg Jensen wrote:Divergirls' is a marbled snailfish; cardiver's is probably the same but I can't be 100% certain when it has the dorsal fin completely scrunched down.
Marbled and showy snailfish seem to be the ones divers encounter most often, and as you can see they are pretty calm fish. The more common ones with lobed fins (tidepool & lobefin) often only give you a fleeting glimpse as they tear off into algae or under a rock and you'd never get one to sit in your glove.

So Greg, with names like Marbled and Showy, you'd expect some sort of pattern or coloration somewhere that they're named after. How come they seem to look so BLAH most of the time? I've seen a few here and there that I'd say were Showy or Marbled looking, but most of the time the only part of them that's slightly interesting is the patterns on their tails.

- Janna

This thread just makes me realize I have a lot of improvement ahead on spotting critters: Greg's comment on tadpole sculpin being common and all these photos of snailfish. Time to get back in the water and search carefully !!!

nwscubamom wrote:

Greg Jensen wrote:Divergirls' is a marbled snailfish; cardiver's is probably the same but I can't be 100% certain when it has the dorsal fin completely scrunched down.
Marbled and showy snailfish seem to be the ones divers encounter most often, and as you can see they are pretty calm fish. The more common ones with lobed fins (tidepool & lobefin) often only give you a fleeting glimpse as they tear off into algae or under a rock and you'd never get one to sit in your glove.

So Greg, with names like Marbled and Showy, you'd expect some sort of pattern or coloration somewhere that they're named after. How come they seem to look so BLAH most of the time? I've seen a few here and there that I'd say were Showy or Marbled looking, but most of the time the only part of them that's slightly interesting is the patterns on their tails.

- Janna

I guess they just named them after the most fancy color morphs that they come in- otherwise they'd have names like Blah snailfish, Bland snailfish, Janna's snailfish, etc.
My picture of a marbled that was used in both Gotshall's and Humann's books certainly fits the name nicely, but I agree that most of the ones I come across are pretty drab.

I thought that the marbled snailfish looked like this.

Yeah, that's it! That's a Marbled. So I guess THAT'S the fancy color morph when it decides to dress up.

Greg Jensen wrote:I guess they just named them after the most fancy color morphs that they come in- otherwise they'd have names like Blah snailfish, Bland snailfish, Janna's snailfish, etc.

- Janna

Beautiful! But just remember that Showy and Slimy snailfishes can have that same striped pattern, so don't use it for i.d.

Excellent photos!