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| Seagrass damage from the N-Control |
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| Durrell's vontsira. Credit: Photo from Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust |
Maybe this guy's available. These are, after all, his old stomping grounds. Hell, ole Dave probably hangs out with Jimmy at some of the roadhouses on Airline Highway. After church. | Swimming with a whale shark off the Alabama coast |
That's an alligator track, and not a small one. The hind foot measures about 11.5" to the tip of the longest digit. With a little regression and some literature work, we're estimating a total length of 9-10 feet. The stream is not a big one, some thirty feet across, averaging 1-3 feet in depth. But there are some deep holes, and it supports (supported?) good populations of gar and bowfin. Lots of beaver and raccoon in the area as well. A crocodilian could do worse.
| Submerged oil at Bon Secour shoreline |
Fish artist Joseph R. Tomelleri was born in Kansas City in 1958. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Biology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Although broadly trained in aquatic biology, he previously worked as a botanist. However, in 1986, Tomelleri turned his full focus towards illustrations of fish. Since that time, he has traveled more than 150,000 miles to collect live fish species for his scientific renderings. Tomelleri has illustrated 800+ species. His drawings are executed in Berol Prismacolor pencil and detailed with graphite. His attention to detail and unparalleled mastery of color, textures and hues has earned him world-wide recognition as a pre-eminent illustrator. His gift is in capturing the details that distinguish the various fish species. This makes Tomelleri’s illustrations of fish very rare, because few artists have the talent to produce drawings that are technically accurate and beautiful as well. He has mastered the skill of illustration. His drawings are done in a manner that is impossible photographically. He captures the fishes faithfully with accurate life colors, scale and fin ray-counts, illustrating a full spread of the fins. He is recognized by many ichthyologists as the finest scientific illustrator of fishes in the world. While in the field, he preferreds to photograph fresh live-caught fish to draw and depict their true life colors. His methods of capturing the specimens included hook-and-line, gill netting, seining, electro-shocking, and trawling. Tomelleri’s art has been featured prominently in more than 350 publications and advertisements. Several of his illustrations were included in a book that he helped co-author with Mark Eberle, Fishes of the Central United States. A compilation of his work was also published in Trout and Salmon of North America, written by Bob Behnke.
Bowmouth are viviparous and are aplacental, generally bearing around 4 pups. While they have been known to grow to lengths of 8 feet, most are closer 6.5 or 7 feet. Bowmouths prefer a relatively shallow habitat with a muddy or sandy substrate, and their primary food sources are crustaceans and mollusks. A quick look at their dentition might allow you to deduce that without ever seeing them in action. Unlike many oceanic species, bowmouths are not cosmopolitan. Found mostly in waters of Southeast Asia, they do range into the oceans off East African and are also found along the Indian coastline. 
They’re not currently on the IUCN red list, but there’s a push beginning to see that happen. They’re not fished for their meat, but rather for their dorsal fin. – often the living fish is thrown back into the water to die. In addition, bowmouths sometimes become entangled in gill nets due to their odd shape. 
Many people go to restaurants and order fish, but do they really know what type of fish they are ordering? Different restaurants may well use different types of fish. A popular fish that is being used today for items such as fish sticks and fish patties is the pollock, Theragra chalcogramma. These fish reach lengths to almost four feet and a weight of close to 50 pounds. Recent catches of pollock total close 1.5 million tons per year, representing nearly 1/3 of all marine fish caught annually in U.S. waters. Although the annual catch is large, abundance of pollock is decreasing rapidly due to over-fishing and predators. In 2008, pollock abundance was said to be the lowest in the history of the U.S.-managed fishery.
The pygmy madtom (Noturus stanauli) is the smallest member of the family Ictaluridae. This family of fish is easily recognized due to the barbels that extend from its upper jaw. The pygmy reaches a total length of only 2 inches. Coloration of the fish is typically a dark brown on the dorsal side and a solid white on the ventral side. It is believed that they have a short life span of approximately one year, but they may spawn multiple times.
Discussion of surf-fishing in the Panhandle and the common fish along the beaches leads to a consideration of this one - Ariopsis felis. The hardhead belongs to the Family Ariidae, unlike our freshwater catfish in the Family Ictaluridae. The primary difference between the two families? Ictalurids have a set of barbels adjacent to the nostrils - they're lacking in the sea cats. Hardheads are one of the most common fish off our Gulf beaches, and in our bays too, for that matter. At times, it can be difficult to fish with live bait for anything else, because the catfish will have it within seconds of it reaching the bottom. I can't vouch for them as table fare - I've always been told that they weren't any good to eat, although some folks say differently. It certainly wouldn't be a problem to find out. Hardheads can reach a couple of feet in length, and can weigh up to 10 pounds. Considerably smaller is much more common. 
Until the 1980s, staghorn corals (Acropora sp.) were a dominant member of Caribbean coral reefs. They were hit hard by a variety of diseases, hurricanes, and anthropenic impacts. So hard that they're now endangered. There's been an unforeseen complication. The three-spot damselfish, Stegastes planifrons, kill portions of coral to culture algae and provide hiding spots. They're aggressive, and defend their gardens ferociously. When staghorn corals were abundant, the damselfish preferred to set up housekeeping among their branches, and the relatively fast-growing staghorns could stay ahead of the damage caused by the fish. In the absence of staghorns, damselfish have taken to slower-growing head corals, and they are wreaking havoc on the already stressed corals.
We've heard a lot about the deep plumes of oil and dispersants that are drifting through the Gulf as a result of the Deepwater Horizon disaster (although I suppose that BP is still denying their existence). One ecosystem that may be particularly at risk are the deep-sea coral reefs found in the Gulf and the Florida Straits. In this article at Science Daily, researchers from the University of Miami discuss the threat that the deep plumes represent for these particularly fragile systems. Unlike shallow-water corals, the deep-sea species lack photsynthetic symbionts and are dependent on food particles sinking down from surface waters. If food from the top has to drift through an undersea plume of oil, it will likely be toxic to the deep-dwelling corals. The figure at left, produced by the folks at UM, illustrates the problem.
Another Gulf coaster, this one closely associated with sandy beaches. The Gulf kingfish, Menticirrhus littoralis, known commonly along the coast as "whiting", is one of the more common fish in the surf zone on Gulf beaches. Like the spotted seatrout, it's a member of the Family Sciaenidae, the drums. Whiting reach lengths of about 18", and typically weigh a pound or two. There are a couple of other kingfish species that share the same geographic range - the southern kingfish (M. americanus) and the northern kingfish (M. saxatilis) have dark markings on the bodies, while M. littoralis tends to be uniformly silver, with some darker pigmentation on the rear of the caudal fin. All have a single chin barbel. M. littoralis is fond of high energy beaches, while its congeners like calmer areas with softer bottoms.
The beaches of Florida's Volusia County, particularly the stretch in and around Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, are fairly infamous for the number of shark attacks that occur there. The vast majority are fairly inconsequential, although lethal attacks are certainly not unheard of. The Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida maintains the International Shark Attack File in which they track shark attack records. Here you can see their compilation of Florida's 629 confirmed, unprovoked shark attacks between 1882 and 2009. Volusia County boasts 239 attacks, more than double the runner-up (which happens to be Brevard County, just to the south of Volusia). It's worth noting that none of the Volusia attacks have been lethal. In fact, only 13 of the total 639 have resulted in fatalities. The reason is that most of the sharks involved, and, in fact, most of the sharks found in nearshore waters are smaller species like spinners, blacktips, blacknoses, etc. You'll get the occasional tiger or bull, but they're few and far between. Still, shark attacks are a serious thing in Florida, where everything depends on tourism and tourism depends on water. And going in the water depends on, well, you know.
Another coastal fish that will be seeing some hurt in the coming months. If you've spent much time on Gulf beaches, you've doubtless had juvenile pompano nibbing around your toes. Trachinotus carolinus is a jack, in the Family Carangidae. It's deep-bodied form is different from many of the jacks, which tend to be a bit more streamlined. Pompano also lack the scutes (specialized scales) on the caudal peduncle (the region where the body tapers into the tail) that that are found on most jacks. They're silvery in color, often with a greenish tint on the dorsal surface that trends to yellowish below. They're fond of warmer waters, ranging throughout the Gulf and along the Atlantic Coast from Brazil to Massachusetts. Their occurrence at higher latitudes is a summertime phenomenon. Pompano begin spawning in the Gulf in early spring, and the young individuals start showing up on sandy beaches in April and May. Late in the fall, the fish will move out into deeper water. The juveniles feed on small invertebrates, like amphipods, copepods, and larval forms of other crustaceans. As they grow, they begin feeding on larger inverts like mole crabs and coquina. Although they can reach lengths of almost two feet and weights of 8 pounds, a 2-3 pound pompano is a nice one.
