FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 87, NO. 3, 1989 



Table 1 1 . — Diet of flexion-postflexion stage larvae of Seriphus politus. A blank column indicates that no 

 column strata are N = neuston; M = midwater; E = epibenthos. %N = the percent of the total food items 

 prey of the given category. Copepods listed as prey include both copepodites and adults. 



taxa develop a coil in the gut during the preflex- 

 ion stage, reducing the likelihood that the low 

 night feeding incidences reflected voiding of the 

 gut contents during capture. The Paralabrax 

 spp. feeding incidence was relatively high in the 

 day samples, further suggesting that voiding of 

 the gut contents did not contribute appreciably 

 to the low feeding incidence observed at night. 



The higher night feeding incidences for the 

 remaining species, especially Genijonemus 

 lineatus and Seriphus politus, suggest that they 

 may have continued to feed after dark, at least 

 during the early evening hours. Bagarinao and 

 Hunter (1983) noted that older (>10 mm) 

 Engraulis niordax larvae feed in the dark if prey 

 densities are high enough, and suggested that 

 the full moon provides sufficient illumination for 

 these larvae to feed near the surface at lower 

 prey densities. Other reports of apparent larval 



fish feeding at night include, for example, 

 Brewer and Kleppel's (1986) report of high feed- 

 ing incidence until midnight for larval G. 

 lineatus collected near shore in Santa Monica 

 Bay, and the reports of Sumida and Moser (1980) 

 and Jenkins (1987) that larval Merlnccius pro- 

 ductus off southern California and Rhombosolea 

 tapirina in Port Phillip Bay, Australia, respec- 

 tively, had high feeding incidences throughout 

 much of the day and night. Brewer and Kleppel 

 (1986) and Sumida and Moser (1980) attributed 

 the high night feeding incidences in their studies 

 to slow digestion rather than to nocturnal feed- 

 ing, and this cannot be discounted as an alterna- 

 tive explanation for the high nocturnal feeding 

 incidences noted in the present study. This alter- 

 native interpretation may be supported by the 

 observation that feeding incidences tended to be 

 lower during the August and September 1979 



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