FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



501 



spaces. But its dorsal fin (which extends from 

 close behind the pectorals back to the caudal fin) 

 is spiny (about 75 to 77 spines) for its entire length 

 like that of its close relatives the blennies. But 

 the absence of ventral fins separates it from all of 

 our local blennies, and its peculiar profile is an 

 equally useful field mark, the head being flat- 

 topped, the eyes set high up in very prominent 

 orbits, and the mouth strongly oblique with so 

 heavy a lower jaw that it gives the face a bulldog- 

 like expression when the mouth is closed. The 

 wide gill openings, running forward under the 

 throat, and the small size and rounded outline of 

 the pectorals are distinctive, also, as is the fact that 

 both the dorsal fin and the anal fin are low (less 

 than half as high as the body is deep in large 

 specimens, relatively higher in small), and of 

 uniform heights throughout most of their lengths, 

 with the anal about two-thirds as long as the dor- 

 sal. The caudal fin is oval. 



Color. — Described (and the few preserved speci- 

 mens we have seen correspond with this) as of 

 varying shades of brown or reddish brown, with 

 the upper part of the sides marked with two or 

 three irregular rows of small darker brown spots 

 that run from head to tail; the lop of the head is 

 thicldy speckled; the dorsal and anal fins are 

 spotted with similar but smaller dots, and the belly 

 is grayish white. A few spotless specimens have 

 been seen. 



Size. — Maximum length about 3 feet. 



Habits. — Very little was known of the habits of 

 the wrymouth until recently, except that it is a 

 bottom fish living from the intertidal zone down to 

 considerable depths (where it is sometimes taken 

 on line trawls in the Bay of Fundy). But in 1910 

 and again in 1920 Willey and Huntsman 85 found 

 full-grown wrymouths living in burrows in the mud 

 on the flats at the mouth of the Magaguadavic 

 Kiver, a tributary of Passamaquoddy Bay. These 

 burrows, to quote from their account, "were found 

 in very soft mini from the lower part of the Fucus 

 zone downward; that is, as far up as 4 feet above 

 low-water mark," and "each system of burrows, 

 inhabited by only one fish, consisted of branching 

 tunnels about 5 cm. in diameter and from 3 to 8 cm. 

 below the surface" of the mud, originating from 

 a more or less centrally placed mound, where the 



" Canad. Field Natural., vol. 35, 1921, p. 4. 



main entrance was, with other smaller openings 

 along the tunnels and at their terminations. 



It seems that the burrowing instinct is strong, 

 for one fish kept in a tank constantly inhabited a 

 piece of hard rubber tubing. Hence it is probable 

 that wrymouths in other parts of the Gulf likewise 

 live in burrows or perhaps under stones. And 

 they seem as likely to be inshore in shoal water 

 in winter as in summer, for one was speared in 

 Marblehead Harbor in December many years 

 ago. 86 Within our Gulf wrymouths have been 

 found from a little above low water mark, as just 

 remarked, down to about 100 fathoms; and to 

 somewhere between 245 and 325 fathoms off New 

 Jersey (see footnote 89, p. 502). 



Huntsman and Willey found "beach fleas" or 

 "sand-hoppers" (Oammants), shrimps (Crago) and 

 fragments of winter flounders in several wry- 

 mouths which they opened, and the one kept in 

 captivity ate sand-hoppers, hermit crabs, small 

 herring, and mollusks such as limpets, peri- 

 winkles, whelks, clams, and mussels. Apparently 

 it located food as much by sight as by smell. 87 



Ripe wrj mouths are yet to be seen; but the 

 presence of the larvae early in spring in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, as reported by Huntsman, with the 

 seasonal occurrence of the fry mentioned below 

 (p. 502), proves it a winter spawner in the Gulf of 

 Maine. It may breed later in the GiUf of St. 

 Lawrence, for Dannevig 88 records a young wry- 

 inouth only 38 mm. long that was taken there as 

 late as June 10. The localities where the young 

 fish have been taken (sec p. 502) suggest that wry- 

 mouths spawn all around the coast of the Gulf of 

 Maine and wherever they occur on the offshore 

 hanks. 



Neither the eggs nor the early larval stages are 

 known. But by the time the young have grown 

 to a length of 21 to 22 mm. they show the long 

 dorsal and anal fins, and the lack of ventral fins 

 characteristic of their parents, though they are 

 much less slender, relatively, their caudal fins are 

 larger and square instead of rounded and their 

 mouths are nearly horizontal. The pigmentation 

 of the fry is likewise extremely characteristic, the 

 upper sides from the eye back to the caudal fin 



*• Putnam, Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 6, 1874, pp. 11-13. 



87 Willey and Huntsman also give interesting data on its respiration and 

 on its response to various stimuli. 



>« Canadian Fisheries Expedition, 1914-1915 (1919), p. IB. He gives an 

 excellent figure of this specimen on pi. 2, fig. 10. 



