FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 74, NO. 1 



believe that the young develop in shallow^er 

 water. The bulk of spawning appears to take 

 place from late fall to late winter or early spring 

 since all specimens less than 45 mm SL that we 

 have examined came from March and April 

 collections from water less than 20 m deep. Also, 

 Hastings (1972) collected small specimens of 

 P. martis during February to April only (great- 

 est abundance in April) during his seasonal stud- 

 ies of the jetty fauna at Destin and Panama 

 City, Fla. 



Food Habits 



Rapid retrieval of the trawl from the bottom 

 often resulted in eversion of stomachs, especially 

 in the deeper water species. Hence, analysis of 

 food habits was impeded by small sample sizes. 

 Also, the use of numerical abundance of taxa to 

 determine dietary preferences presents an obvi- 

 ous bias. Large numbers of small individuals 

 would appear dominant when, in fact, they might 

 make only a small percentage of the volume of 

 food consumed. This was the case in the domi- 

 nance of amphipods in the stomachs of juvenile fl 

 stearnsi. In general, however, individuals of the 

 numerically dominant taxa tended to be domi- 

 nant in size also. 



On the basis of these limited data, four of the 

 five species (B. militaris, P. alatus, P. martis, P. 

 roseus) and the juveniles of the fifth {P. stearnsi) 

 appear to feed primarily on benthic crustaceans 

 and other benthic organisms. Reid (1954) and 

 Springer and Woodburn (1960) examined P sci- 

 tulus latifrons and P. tribulus crassiceps from the 

 northeastern Gulf and also found that both spe- 

 cies fed primarily on crustaceans. Likewise, Mar- 

 shall (1946) found the same to be true for P. 

 carolinus and P. evolans from the Atlantic coast. 



In contrast, the adults of P stearnsi appear to 

 consume primarily other fishes. The food habits 

 of the adults of this species are different from all 

 other western North Atlantic triglids examined. 

 Its piscivorous habit lends support to our earlier 

 contention that this species is more mobile than 

 its congeners. This type of diet would imply an 

 active pursuit of their prey. 



The fusiform shape of this species also implies 

 an active mode of existence. The head of P. 

 stearnsi with its terminal mouth does not appear 

 to be adapted for bottom feeding. The free rays of 

 the pectoral fins are more slender and less de- 

 veloped; they likely are not used extensively as 



tools for searching along the bottom as in other 

 triglids. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We thank Patrick M. McCaffrey for the sugges- 

 tion that initiated this study and for supplying us 

 with and helping to collect most of our specimens. 

 We express our gratitude to George C. Miller, 

 who confirmed some of our identifications early 

 in this study, Robert W. Hastings, Christopher C. 

 Koenig, and Robert L. Shipp, who provided us 

 with their assistance and encouragement. Ship- 

 time aboard the RV Tursiops for the Gulf Shelf 

 Project cruises was funded through National 

 Science Foundation Contract No. GD-28174, Pat- 

 rick M. McCaffrey, principal investigator. The 

 senior author received support through a Na- 

 tional Science Foundation Trainee Fellowship 

 during the study. 



LITERATURE CITED 



BULLIS, H. R., JR, AND P. J. STRUHSAKER. 



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 BULLIS, H. R., Jr., and J. R. THOMPSON. 



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 Fish Wildl. Serv., Spec. Sci. Rep. Fish. 510, 130 p. 

 BURNS, C. 



1970. Fishes rarely caught in shrimp trawl. Gulf Res. 

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franks, j. s., j. y. christmas, w. l. siler, r. combs, r. 

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