Deree: Age and growth, dietary habits, and parasitisnn of Enchelyopus dmbrius 



43 



observed lengths at age were not significantly dif- 

 ferent (P=0.9608). The Kolmogorov-Smirnoff test 

 revealed there was no significant difference between 

 the back-calculated and observed length-frequency 

 distributions (P=0.3124) (Fig. 7). In addition, back- 

 calculated and observed lengths at ages were highly 

 correlated (P=0.996). 



Dietary habits 



Stomach contents consisted primarily of mollusks 

 and arthropods. Three specimens contained no food 

 and were not included in the determination of nu- 

 merical and frequency of occurrence indices. Yoldia 

 sp. and calanoid copepods composed the majority of 

 prey items in both number and frequency (Table 4). 

 Yoldia sp. and calanoid copepods, combined with 

 Diastylis quadrispinosa, Crangon septemspinosa, 

 unidentified cumaceans and decapods, composed 

 91.6% of the prey items ingested. Frequency indices 

 showed that the latter four prey items had similar 

 frequencies. 



Numerical indices show that copepods composed 

 71.2% of the diet of 1-year-old fish (Table 5). Bivalves 



were second in importance (19.2%), followed by 

 cumaceans (5.4%), amphipods (2.7%), and decapods 

 (1.4%). The importance of copepods decreased to 



