MEYER ET AL.; AMERICAN SAND LANCE FROM THE GULF OF MAINE 



sisted of a continuance of their sinuous movement 

 until one-quarter of the body was buried, at which 

 point the remaining three-quarters of the body 

 was brought to a 20°-40'' angle to allow the animal 

 to settle into its normal resting position ( Figure 7 ). 

 Once in a resting position, the sand lance would 

 partially emerge headfirst if disturbed (Figure 7). 

 Sand lance on Stellwagen Bank, exhibiting this 

 partial-emergence behavior, would retract back 

 into the bottom when further disturbed. In con- 

 trast, sand lance encountered along Provincetown 

 would usually leave the substrate. Kiihlmann and 

 Karst (1967) observed similar behavior and noted 

 on several occasions that, after pulling back into 

 the bottom, sand lance could turn, move laterally 

 through the substrate, and emerge some distance 

 away. This behavior was not observed in our study 

 area. 



Sand lance leaving the bottom exited at an 

 angle between 20° and 60° with an initial speed of 

 50-80 cm/s, which increased up to 120 cm/s within 

 the first 1.5 m from the bottom (Figure 7). As 

 divers proceeded along the bottom, sand lance 

 would exit from the substrate and either school or 

 swim to the end of the diver's visual range. 



Food Habits 



The results of the stomach-content analysis for 

 A. americanus collected on Stellwagen Bank are 

 given in Table 2. The data are presented as both 

 the percentage occurrence of prey in the stomachs 

 and as the percentage weight of the total prey 

 consumed. It is evident that copepods were the 

 most important prey, occurring in 37.8% of the 

 stomachs examined and making up 41.4% of the 

 total weight of the prey. The other identifiable 

 prey groups, such as hyperiid amphipods, mysids, 

 euphausiids, chaetognaths, salps, and animal 

 eggs, were much less important, usually occurring 

 in only 1-2% of the stomachs. Of these gi'oups only 

 the chaetognath Sagitta contributed significantly 

 to the diet on a percentage weight basis (39.9% ). 

 This was because the stomach of one fish was quite 

 distended with chaetognaths. "Animal remains," 

 which are unidentifiable prey, were the most fre- 

 quently occurring prey category; however, on a 

 weight basis they were much less significant. 



The food habits of a number of different species 

 of sand lance have been studied in Atlantic and 

 Pacific waters. In general the diets are all very 

 similar, with copepods being the major prey in 

 almost every instance (Reay 1970). Around Japan, 



TABLF> 2. — Stomach contents of American sand lance collected 

 on Stellwagen Bank, August 1977. The data are expressed as 

 both the percentage frequency of occurrence of prey and as the 

 percentage weight of the total quantity of prey consumed. 



for example, both Senta (1965) and Sekiguchi 

 (1977) have shown that A. personatus is a 

 plankton feeder relying heavily on copepods. In 

 the North Sea, Roessingh' found that copepods 

 were the major prey of A. marimis and occurred in 

 roughly the same proportions in the stomachs as 

 they did in the plankton. Macer (1966) examined 

 the stomach contents of five species of sand lance 

 from the North Sea. In all cases the sand lance 

 were found to be plankton feeders, with copepods 

 being the dominant prey for at least three of the 

 five species. Only for A. lanceolatus was it conclu- 

 sively shown that copepods were less significant as 

 prey, being replaced by fish eggs, larvae, or small 

 fish, particularly sm&W Am modytes. Two species oi 

 sand lance are reported to occur along the Atlantic 

 coast of North America, and only a small amount 

 of information is available on their food habits. 

 Richards (1963) examined the stomachs of 290 A. 

 americanus in Long Island Sound; as for most 

 other species of sand lance, copepods were the 

 major prey. Centropages were preyed upon by 80% 

 of the fish, Acartia by 55%, and Temora by 42%. 

 Other prey included barnacle cyprids, fish eggs, 

 dinoflagellates and diatoms, mysids, and sand 

 lance larvae. Scott ( 1973) studied the food habits of 



'Roessingh.M, 1957. Problems arising from the expansion 

 of the industrial fishery for the sand Qe\. Ammodytes marinus 

 Raitt, towards the Dutch coastal area. Near Northern Seas 

 Committee, Int. Counc, Explor. Sea. 



251 



