Prickly sculpin
| Prickly sculpin | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Scorpaeniformes |
| Family: | Cottidae |
| Genus: | Cottus |
| Species: | C. asper |
| Binomial name | |
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Cottus asper Richardson, 1836 |
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Cottus asper is a species of fish in the sculpin family known by the common name prickly sculpin. It is native to the river drainages of the Pacific Slope of North America from Seward, Alaska south to the Ventura River of Southern California. It extends east of the Continental Divide in the Peace River of British Columbia. It has also been introduced to several reservoirs in Southern California.
This fish can reach about 30 centimeters in length, but it is usually smaller, often around 7 centimeters. It is mature at 2 to 4 years of age, and its maximum lifespan is around 7 years. It is brown, gray, or olive green on its upper parts and white or yellowish ventrally. There are dark spots or bars on the back and dark bars on most of the fins. The breeding male is darker in color than the female and nonbreeding male. Both sexes develop an orange coloration along the edge of the first dorsal fin during breeding. The pectoral fins are large and fan-shaped. The body of the fish is prickly; inland-dwelling fish tend to be more prickly than those at the coast.
There are two main forms of the species. The inland form lives in lakes, while the coastal form lives in rivers and swims down into brackish estuaries to breed. A catadromous species, it is tolerant of high and low salinities. It is generally a bottom-dwelling species. It is nocturnal, feeding at night.
The diet of the fish includes water invertebrates, insects and their larvae,salmon eggs, fish larvae, especially those of the Sacramento sucker (Catostomus occidentalis occidentalis), and zooplankton, especially Daphnia spp. Larger sculpins eat small fish, frogs, and molluscs. The adults are known to cannibalize the juveniles.
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Wikipedia