FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



487 



taken from the gill cavity of a sunfish (Alola mola) ; 

 others have been found in the mouths and gill 

 cavities of large sharks. 



Nothing beyond this is known of its way of life. 

 Presumably it feeds on fragments of the fish killed 

 by its host, as the shark sucker does whose actions 

 are better known. Presumably, too, it is an active 

 a swimmer as are its relatives. Nothing is known 

 of its breeding habits. 



Remora Remora remora (Linnaeus) 1758 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2271. 



Description. — The chief distinctions between the 

 remora and the swordfish sucker is that it has a 

 larger number of ridges in its sucking plate on the 

 average (16 to 20, as against 14 to 17), and that 

 there are only 22 to 25 rays in its dorsal fin, whereas 

 the swordfish sucker has 29 to 32. Like the latter, 

 it is a stouter fish than the shark sucker (p. 485), 

 and its ventral fins are similarly attached to the 

 skin of the abdomen along their inner edges. 



Color.- — -Uniform brownish, blackish, or sooty, 

 both above and below. 



Size. — Maximum length about 18 inches. 



Habits. — Very little is known of the life history 

 of the remoras. The young fry of this, and of 

 other species of Remora have been taken in the 

 open Atlantic, usually in June or July which sug- 

 gests a sharply limited spawning period. A 

 remora may join a shark, or other host, when 

 only about 1% inches (3 to 4 cm.) long. 26 But we 

 have yet to learn how long or how constantly one 



may accompany a single shark, or how often it 

 may transfer from one host to another. 



General range. — Tropical seas generally; very 

 common in the West Indies, occasionally north to 

 New York and to Woods Hole, and only a stray 

 north of Cape Cod. It is usually attached to large 

 sharks or to sea turtles. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The only 

 Gulf of Maine records for the remora, up to 1925, 

 were of one taken many years ago in Salem Har- 

 bor, no doubt brought thither clinging to the 

 bottom of some ship in from a southern voyage, 

 as Goode and Bean 27 remarked; and of one in 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology that was 

 taken at Provincetown long past. More recent 

 records are of one found clinging to the bottom 

 of a lobster trap in Portland Harbor in 1931, 

 probably brought in by some West Indian schooner, 

 several of which had recently been in the harbor; 28 

 of a second found sucking to the gills of a blue 

 shark Prionace glauca caught on the northeast 

 edge of Georges Bank, August 1 of that same 

 year; and of a third fastened to a shark of the 

 genus Carcharhinus that was caught at the surface 

 over the southeast slope of Georges Bank in 

 July 1939. 29 



Records from farther east and north along the 

 American coast are of one taken from a blue 

 shark, 10 miles off Cape Sable, June 1, 1933; M 

 of another (also from a blue shark) west of Sable 

 Island, September 9, 1934; and of two taken from 

 sharks on St. Pierre Bank, south of Newfoundland, 

 one of them on August 13, 1936, 31 the other rm 

 October 7, 1937. 32 



Figure 253. — Remora (Remora remora). After Day. 

 THE SAND LAUNCES. FAMILY AMMODYTIDAE 



The slender, round-bodied sand launces suggest 

 small eels in general appearance. Eel-like, too, 

 they lack ventral fins, and they swim with eel- 



» Taning, Nature, vol. 20, 1927, p. 224. 

 " Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 11, 1879, p. 21. 

 " Reported to us by the late Walter H. Rich, of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



like undulations from side to side. But they are 

 not even remote relatives of the true eels, from 



3» The last 2 are in the collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

 » Vladykov, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 7. 

 " McKenzie and Homans, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. ScL, vol. 19. 1938. p. 279 

 » McKenzie, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 20, 1939, p. 18. 



