Great Lakes fishes

Hello,

Can someone post a picture of the types of sculpins that might be found in Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.

If possible, could you also give me a little background on the fish .

Thank you.

netmaker

Sculpins found in Ohio/Lake Erie

Pictures of both mottled and spoonhead sculpin are readily available on the internet via google, etc.

Thank you.

What would be a likely habitat?
Sandy
Rocks
structures

Thank you.

nm

I believe spoonhead sculpin are found in very VERY deep water (e.g. 100+ ft). Someone that worked (used to?) with Scott Schlueter did some graduate research on them using submersables. Not sure of their current status in either lake.

What would be a likely habitat?
Sandy
Rocks
structures

Thank you.

nm

In Lake Superior I often see mottled sculpin in rocky areas and on the structures of shipwrecks. I would imagine any fairly solid structure with lots of crevices and such would attract them.

In Lake Superior I often see mottled sculpin in rocky areas and on the structures of shipwrecks. I would imagine any fairly solid structure with lots of crevices and such would attract them.

Not all sculpins are restricted to rocky areas, and I suspect that a lot of the "mottled sculpin" you see while diving in Lake Superior are actually slimy sculpin -- the mottleds that I've seen in the Great Lakes are mostly a shallow-water littoral species. Slimy, spoonhead, and deepwater sculpin can all be found over a broad range of substrates, from rock to gravel to silt. The following little blurb on lacustrine sculpin nesting habitat preferences is from an upcoming book [shameless plug inserted here] on Ecology and Systematics of North American Freshwater Fishes that I'm contributing to...

"Most freshwater cottids are speleophils (sensu Balon 1975); perhaps the most extreme exception is the viviparous Baikalian genus Comephorus (Koryakov 1972; Sideleva 1995). Male sculpins usually excavate cavities or occupy large interstitial crevices under stones. Nest sites utilized by freshwater sculpins are diverse and include natural cavities under rocks and woody debris, plants, tunnels in firmly-packed loam, crevices in gravel and cobble substrates, and man-made stream debris such as bricks, concrete blocks, cans and bottles (Koster 1936; Ludwig & Norden 1969; Downhower & Brown 1977; Rohde & Arndt 1981; Burr & Warren 1988).

Use of spawning substrate by taxa inhabiting deep lakes is poorly known, but could potentially be a fertile area of study. Bear Lake Sculpin (Cottus extensus) move inshore to spawn in rocky areas in less than 6m of water (Ruzycki et al. 1998). Bond (1963) hypothesized that lake populations of C. klamathensis occupying soft detritus substrates likely moved inshore or into tributaries for spawning, but this has not been confirmed by field observations.
Westin (1970) documented spawning sites used by Myoxocephalus quadricornis in the Baltic Sea; pits in soft substrates at ~20m depth. Similarly, several deepwater lacustrine taxa (Cottus cognatus, Cottus ricei, Myoxocephalus thompsonii) in the Laurentian Great Lakes do not appear to migrate into shallow water or towards hard substrates for spawning; rather, both Selgeby (1988) and Geffen & Nash (1992) observed offshore movement of Deepwater Sculpin during the winter.

Pits superficially similar to the nests of Fourhorn Sculpin (Westin 1970) were observed in Lake Michigan during August from a submersible and attributed to Deepwater Sculpin (D. Jude, cited in Geffen & Nash 1992). However, whether these pits were actually nests, and if so were active at the time was not ascertained.

Sediments of deep oligotrophic lakes often have a semi-firm water-substrate interface that is jelly-like, and of which the top several cm is well oxygenated. Emery (1973) observed Cottus cognatus in Canadian Shield lakes in Ontario resting on the substrate surface, and diving into the sediment when startled."

...so netmaker, just what are you <doing> up there?

cheers,
Dave