Table 8.— Geographic breakdown of food of the red hake, Urophycis chuss, in the northwest Atlantic. Data 

 are expressed as percentage weight, for fish collected during the spring and autumn bottom trawl survey 

 cruises 1969-72. (+ indicates present but <0.17o.) 



The only other taxon that was of any significance, and 

 then only on Georges Bank, was the MoUusca of the class 

 Gastropoda (17.4%). 



Spotted hake, Urophycis regius. — The areal break- 

 down of food of the spotted hake is limited to the Middle 

 Atlantic and Southern New England, since no stomachs 

 were collected in the Gulf of Maine and Western Nova 

 Scotia, and only four fish were analyzed from Georges 

 Bank (Table 9). A comparison between the two areas 

 showed that the foods were reasonably similar, the major 

 differcence being due to the importance of cephalopods 

 (16.1%), especially Loligo (6.8%), in the Middle Atlan- 

 tic. 



Crustaceans were a major prey category. In both the 

 Middle Atlantic and Southern New England the "Other 

 Decapoda" was the largest grouping consisting mostly of 

 the munid crabs. In the Middle Atlantic, Munida (9.4%), 



both M. iris (7.4%) and M. ualida (1.7%), together with 

 Munidopsis (2.8%), were present in the stomach con- 

 tents, but in Southern New England the species were re- 

 stricted to M. iris (11.3%) and M. ualida '9.2%). Inter- 

 estingly, hyperiid amphipods were important, making up 

 3.4'/o of the diet in the Middle Atlantic and 6.1% in 

 Southern New England. The rock crab, Cancer irror- 

 atus (6.7%), composed a significant part of the prey in 

 the Middle Atlantic. Other crustaceans of secondary 

 importance were Crangon (4.8% in the Middle Atlantic 

 and 2.6^c in Southern New England), Dichelopandalus 

 (S.e'^c in the Middle Atlantic and 4.0% in Southern New 

 England), and the isopods (3.1% in the Middle Atlantic 

 only), such as Cirolina polita (0.7%), which are included 

 under "Other Crustacea." 



"Pisces" was the last major grouping. In the Middle 

 Atlantic, red hake (3.4%) and silver hake (3.3%); the 

 bothid, Citharichthys arctifrons (1.7%); the pleuro- 



13 



