532 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Description. — The sharp-tailed sunfish differs 

 from the common sunfish (Mola mola) chiefly in 

 the fact that the rear margin of its body is edged 

 by a short but evident caudal fin of 18-20 soft rays, 

 that extends around from close behind the dorsal 

 fin to close behind the anal fin, with a triangular 

 lobelike, blunt-tipped projection a little above the 

 midlevel of the body. Its scales, too, are much 

 finer and less evident to the touch than those of 

 Mola, and its skin is less slimy. It resembles Mola 

 very closely in all other respects. 



Color. — Described as with the whole trunk more 

 or less silvery, the upper parts of the sides grayish 

 brown to blackish, the lower parts paler; the sides 

 either plain or variously marked with ill-defined 

 dark spots; the dorsal and anal fins as dark slaty, 

 the caudal fin as sometimes with pale blotches. 



Size. — This sunfish appears to grow as large as 

 the more common Mola, perhaps even larger. In 

 a Florida specimen, 88 inches long (after being 

 dried somewhat) the tail fin occupied 21 inches, 

 the body occupied 67 inches and was 38 inches 

 high. 30 The dimensions of a North Carolina 

 specimen 1Z\{ inches long were: body 54% inches 

 long by 37 inches high and 1 1 inches thick, tail fin 

 19 inches long, dorsal fin 27 inches high, anal fin 25 

 inches high. 31 



Habits. — Nothing is known of its habits to dif- 

 ferentiate it from its more common relative. 



General range. — This sunfish, like Mola, appears 

 to be cosmopolitan in tropical-warm temperate 

 latitudes, oceanic in nature but coming close in- 

 shore on occasion, and even into estuarine situ- 

 ations. Adults have been reported from Japan, 

 the Hawaiian Islands, Polynesia, Amboina, and 

 Mauritius in the Indian and Pacific Oceans; from 

 the Red Sea; from South Africa (Table Bay); 

 from Madeira, from near the Azores; near Habana, 

 Cuba (7 specimens); east coast of Florida (9 

 specimens), and North Carolina (4 specimens) in 

 the Atlantic. Young fry have been taken off the 

 Azores; in the Sargasso Sea; west of the Canaries; 

 in the Caribbean; and in the Gulf of Mexico. 32 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The only 

 record for the sharp-tailed sunfish for our Gulf is 

 for 4 young fry, about 2 inches long, that were 

 taken many years ago in Massachusetts Bay. 

 These were originally reported by Putnam 33 as 

 the young of the common ocean sunfish, but 

 Schmidt 3i and Gudger 35 have shown that they 

 were the sharp-tailed species in reality, because 

 with projecting caudal fins. The nearest locality 

 record for an adult of the species (to date) is for 

 Pamlico Sound, N. C. But it would not be 

 astonishing if one were to drift farther northward 

 any summer, as so many stray species do from 

 the south. 



THE ANGLERS. FAMILY LOPHIIDAE 



This family is the only familiar Gulf of Maine 

 representative of the small but anatomically re- 

 markable tribe of pediculate fishes, in which the 

 base of the pectoral fin takes the form of an arm 

 ("pseudo-brachium") formed by the elongation of 

 the carpal bones ("actinosts"), which are so short 

 in all other bony fishes that they are not noticeable 

 externally. Coupled with this peculiar structure 

 of the pectorals, the gill openings are reduced to 

 small apertures in or near the axils ("armpits") 

 of these fins. The anglers are characterized among 

 their immediate relatives by a very large and very 

 much flattened head; by an enormous mouth; and 

 by the fact that they have only two bones in each 

 pectoral "arm." The Gulf of Maine harbors one 

 species. 



American goosefish Lophius americanus Cuvier 

 and Valenciennes 1837 



Monkfish; Angler; Allmouth; Molligut; 

 Fishing frog 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, Lophius piscatorius 

 Linnaeus 17G6 in part, p. 2713. 



Description. — The goosefish is so unlike all 

 other Gulf of Maine fishes that there is no danger 

 of mistaking it for any other once it is seen. It 

 is so much flattened, dorso-ventrally, and so soft 

 in texture that when one is left stranded on the 



» Hubbs and Giovannell, Copela, 1931, pp. 135-136. 



" Brimley, Jour. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc, vol. 55, 1939, p. 295. 



» See Gudger (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1937, Ser. A, p. 353), for list of 

 locality records up to 1937 with references; Brimley (Jour. Elisha Mitchell 

 Sci. Soc, vol. 55, 1939, p. 295) for account of North Carolina specimens. 



» Proc. Amer. Assoc. Advancement of Science, 19th meeting, Troy, N. Y. 

 (1870) 1871, pp. 255-256. 



« Meddel. Komm. Havundersflgelser, Denmark, Ser. Fiskeri, vol. 6, Pt. 6, 

 1921, p. 6. 



>» Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1937, Ser. A, p. 382. 



