and 19% of the stomachs of late-lifted fish were 

 empty. 



Food of the striped bass at Holyoke Dam was 

 dominated by the body parts of adult American shad, 

 blueback herring, and sea lamprey when many in- 

 dividuals of these species were being lifted, and 

 dominated by forage fish and insects, when the 

 alosids and sea lampreys were scarce (Fig. lb). The 

 reduced incidence of feeding on the body parts of 

 large fish by striped bass lifted after 21 June was 

 probably the result of a dramatic reduction in the 

 availability of this food that occurred when the run 

 of anadromous alosids diminished. 



Hollis (1952) found alosid scales in the stomachs 

 of adult striped bass captured below Conowingo Dam 

 on the Susquehanna River in Maryland, but he dis- 

 missed these as accidental. In our study, alosid body 

 parts occurred in stomachs too frequently to be ac- 

 cidental. Many authors consider the food that is 

 selected by striped bass to be directly related to the 

 availability (Hollis 1952; Thomas 1967; Schaefer 

 1970). During the run of anadromous fish at Holyoke 

 Dam, the most abundant food that is available for 

 striped bass is likely the body parts of dead or in- 

 jured American shad, blueback herring, and sea lam- 

 prey although we were not able to confirm this by 

 sampling below the dam. About 900,000 adult alosids 

 were passed upstream in the fish lifts in 1982, and 

 injuries and mortalities were commonly observed at 

 the dam and fish lifts. Subadult striped bass may 

 typically concentrate below hydroelectric dams and 

 feed on the parts of fish (anadromous or freshwater 

 species) that die or sustain injury while attempting 

 to move upstream or downstream of the dam. 



Acknowledgments 



This research was supported by Federal Aid Pro- 

 ject AFS-4-R-21 and Dingell- Johnson Project 

 5-29328 to the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries 

 and Wildlife and the Massachusetts Cooperative 

 Fishery Research Unit. 



Literature Cited 



Bell, C. E., and B. Kynard. 



1985. Mortality of adult American shad passing through a 

 17-megawatt Kaplan turbine at a low-head hydroelectric dam. 

 North Am. J. Fish. Manage 5:33-38. 

 Hollis, E. H. 



1952. Variations in the feeding habits of the striped bass, Roc- 

 cus saxatilis (Walbaum), in Chesapeake Bay. Bull. Bingham 

 Oceanogr. Collect, Yale Univ. 14:111-131. 

 Merriman, D. 



1941. Studies on the striped bass (Roccus saxatilis) of the 

 Atlantic coast. U.S. Fish Wildl. Serv., Fish. Bull. 50:1-77. 



Moss, D. D. 



1960. A history of the Connecticut River and its fisheries. 

 Conn. Board Fish. Game, Hartford, 12 p. 

 O'Leary, J. O. 



1985. Connecticut River anadromous fish investigations. 

 Mass. Coop. Fish. Res. Unit, Univ. Mass., D-J Proj. F-45-R-2 

 Rep., 19 p. 

 Schaefer, R. H. 



1970. Feeding habits of striped bass from the surf waters of 

 Long Island. N.Y. Fish Game J. 17:1-17. 

 Thomas, J. L. 



1967. The diet of juvenile and adult striped bass, Roccus sax- 

 atilis, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system. Calif. 

 Fish Game 53:49-62. 

 Warner, J. R 



1983. Demography, food habits, and movements of striped 

 bass, Morone saxatilis Walbaum, in the Connecticut River, 

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 94 p. 



John Warner 

 Boyd Kynard 



Massachusetts Cooperative Fishery Research Unit 

 204 Holdsworth Hall 

 University of Massachusetts 

 Amherst, MA 01003 



GENETIC CONFIRMATION OF SPECIFIC 



DISTINCTION OF ARROWTOOTH FLOUNDER, 



ATHERESTHES STOMIAS, AND 



KAMCHATKA FLOUNDER., A. EVERMANNI 



The uncertain taxonomic status of two morphologi- 

 cal types of Atheresthes (family Pleuronectidae) has 

 led to some problems in fisheries surveys and stock 

 assessments. Although data collection would be 

 simplified if these types were conspecific morphs, 

 a single classification would mask differences of 

 distribution and abundance if each type actually 

 represented a distinct species. Each type is described 

 as a separate species: arrowtooth flounder, A. 

 stomias, and Kamchatka flounder, A. evermanni, 

 based on morphological differences in gill raker 

 count, dorsal and anal fin rays, caudal vertebrae 

 number, eye-dorsal fin distance, and relative position 

 of the upper eye (Norman 1934; Wilimovsky et al. 

 1967). However, the differences are subtle, and both 

 types have generally been considered A. stomias in 

 fisheries surveys (e.g., Smith and Bakkala 1982). 



Atheresthes stomias occurs in the eastern Bering 

 Sea and eastern North Pacific Ocean from about St. 

 Matthew Island, southward through the eastern Ber- 

 ing Sea and Gulf of Alaska, and along the North 

 American coast to central California (Hart 1973). 

 Atheresthes evermanni is distributed in the western 



222 



FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 84, NO. 1, 1986. 



