348 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



132. Red-winged sea robin (Prionotus strigatus Cuvier and Valenciennes) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2167. 



Description. — The red-winged sea robin resembles the common sea robin so 

 closely that one might easily be taken for the other, but its mouth is wider and gapes 

 back almost opposite the front of the eye, with the maxillary bone more than one- 

 third as long as the head. Its head is flatter (compare fig. 171 with fig. 170a), its 

 pectoral fin is relatively longer (reaching back to the ninth or tenth ray of the second 

 dorsal instead of only to the fifth or sixth) , its pectoral feelers are more slender and 

 tapering, its caudal fin is square-ended instead of emarginate, and its reddish or 

 olive-brown sides (the general ground tint varies) are banded longitudinally below 

 the lateral line with a dusky or bronze-brown stripe. However, the first dorsal 

 shows the same black or dusky blotch between the fourth and fifth spines, so char- 

 acteristic of the common robin. The pectorals are described (we have not seen it 

 alive) as sometimes dusky, with crossbars and edged with yellow and sometimes 



FIG 171. — Red-winged sea robin (Prionotus strigatus) 



reddish brown above, hence the common name. The second dorsal is either plain 

 brown or with two dark blotches at its base, and the gill covers are described as 

 sometimes orange. 



Size. — This is a larger fish than the common sea robin, growing to a maximum 

 length of about 18 inches. 



General range. — Shoal water along the Atlantic coast of North America from 

 Massachusetts Bay to South Carolina, chiefly south of Cape Cod. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This southern fish rarely rounds Cape Cod, 

 there being but 5 definite records for the Gulf of Maine — Monomoy, North Truro, 

 Salem, and Gloucester (the latter its most northerly outpost), and for the eastern 

 part of Georges Bank, whence one was brought in to the U. S. Fish Commission 

 sometime between 1877 and 1880. 



