Fishes of Cape Fear Estuary 21 



and Light Company personnel using meter (505/u mesh) plankton sam- 

 pling efforts conducted throughout the study area. 



Voucher specimens are deposited in the curated collection of the 

 Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina. Specific fish 

 names follow Robins et al. (1980). Exceptions are: Dawson's (1979) sub- 

 specific designation for the opposum pipefish as Oostethus brachyurus 

 lineatus, and Tyler's (1980) definition of Monocanthus and the family 

 Monocanthidae. Deckert's (1973) and Miller's (1976) revisions of Diap- 

 terus are adopted. Contrary to Fahay and Obenchain (1978), we follow 

 McCosker's (1977) placement of the genus Pisodonophis in Ophichthus. 

 We also recognize Ophidion welshi (Nichols and Breder 1922) rather 

 than Rissola marginata (= Ophidion marginatus, Cohen and Nielsen 

 1978) as the most abundant cusk-eel inhabiting the river. 



Rare, common, and abundant fishes are defined as species known 

 from 1, 2 to 10, or more than 10 specimens, respectively. The terms 

 Virginian, Carolinian, and Caribbean refer to geographic provinces 

 along the western Atlantic coast (Briggs 1974). Virginian is that area 

 usually located north of Cape Hatteras; Carolinian is the Continental 

 Shelf area adjacent to the coast between Cape Hatteras and the tip of 

 Florida; and Caribbean is that offshore area seaward of the Carolinian 

 area and located over warm waters of great depths adjacent to the Gulf 

 Stream. Substrate designations are considered sand, mud, clay, muddy- 

 sand or sandy-mud, depending on visual inspection of the amount of 

 mud or sand comprising a Shipek grab at each study station. 



RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 



Physical and Chemical Parameters. — Water temperatures and 

 salinities usually ranged from 4-26° C and 0-8 ppt in the river near Buoy 

 42, 3.7-29° C and 3-30 ppt southward of Wilmington to Snows Cut, 

 5-31.8° C and 10-34 ppt from Snows Cut to Buoy 19 (5.5 km north of 

 Southport), and 5.6-30.7° C and 20-36 ppt in the river south of Buoy 19 

 and including the nearby Atlantic Ocean (Schwartz 1979, 1979). Waters 

 in the Intracoastal Waterway west of Southport, which are of lower 

 river origin, mirrored water temperatures and salinities usually noted 

 for the river near Southport. 



Oxygen content was usually more than 4 ppm. On only one occa- 

 sion was ppm oxygen content noted — for a patch of water that 

 extended from the Intracoastal Waterway side of Caswell Beach, around 

 the island, and along the outer beach southwestward for 2 km. 



Fishes.— During 1973-1980, 12,612,022 fishes of 249 species and 

 85 families were collected throughout the lower Cape Fear estuary 

 (Table 2). Additional fishes recorded in the literature supplement our 

 list by three families and seven species. As expected, several of these 



