BRAY and EBELING; THREE "PICKER-TYPE" FISHES 



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Figure 1. -Scored fullness (1, empty - 5, full) of foreguts of: top, 

 kelp perch; middle, white seaperch; and bottom, seiiorita (which 

 buries itself at night). Each point represents the mean value for 

 (n) individuals collected over a 2-h interval. Time is measured 

 relative to sunrise (0600 h) and sunset (1800 h-see text). 



midday. Of 65 diurnal foreguts examined, 78% 

 contained food. At night the fish bury themselves 

 in soft areas of bottom (see next section). 

 However, six of seven guts of fish collected at 

 dawn were completely empty. 



The duration of passage of food through the 

 guts of the two perches was estimated from their 

 diel feeding cycles. Assuming -that feeding stops 

 at dusk when almost half the foreguts were full or 

 nearly so, and that almost all hindguts have emp- 

 tied by dawn when almost all were, the retention 

 time is probably no more than 10-12 h. 



Activity 

 Feeding Rate 



Field observations of feeding bites indicated 



Kelp perch White seoperch 



Senorita 



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fullness 



Figure 2.-Scored fullness of: foreguts (left open bars), midguts 

 (middle hatched bars), and hindguts (right open bars) for the 

 three fishes over 2-h intervals, beginning at dawn. Heights of the 

 bars, scaled at the bottom of the figure, represent mean scores for 

 the numbers of individuals indicated in Figure 1. 



that kelp perch fed frequently, at a maximum 

 average rate of 20 bites/min around midday, 

 decreasing to zero toward sunset (Figure 3). White 

 seaperch and solitary senoritas fed much more 

 slowly, at maximum rates of only 3.0 and 1.0 

 bites/min, respectively. Whereas both perches 

 were seen feeding actively throughout the day, 

 senoritas seemed to feed much less intensely after 

 midafternoon. None of the particular individuals 

 followed during the last two daytime intervals 

 were seen to bite. During this time, however, a few 

 other fish were observed picking away at bits of 

 kelp. But this does not modify our general 

 impression that, during the late afternoon hours, 

 most serioritas feed much less actively than earlier 

 in the day. 



821 



