Dedicated to the study of vertebrate ecology in the Pacific Northwest
Society for Northwestern
Vertebrate Biology
June
A sculpin (Cottus spp) observed in Trap Creek, a tributary of the Willapa River in Pacific County, Washington on June 17th, 2015. Photo by Eric Lund, who really doesn’t want to be one of “those folks who can only record sculpin species on their data sheet” ( The Murreletter Vol 22 #3) and who hopes that the current SNVB president and published sculpin author/presenter can somehow peg the species from this photo and chime in with a comment here. Also of note (and perhaps relevant?), the Washington state record for a prickly sculpin (Cottus asper) is 0.45 pounds (set just one year ago in Chelan county), a fact that the webmaster finds to be rather amazing.
Well Mr. Lund…my best guess, based on the known distribution of sculpin species in the Willapa Hills is that it is either a Prickly Sculpin (Cottus asper) or Riffle Sculpin (C. gulosus) (it could as well be the reticulate sculpin, C. perplexus, but there is some contention about if it is separate from C. gulosus). Because it is higher in the stream network and I don’t think there is any nearby lentic rearing habitat that would be used by C. asper, I’m going to go with Riffle Sculpin. It is very difficult to identify these amazing fish when they aren’t in hand and I would love an alternative view point. In fact I’ll by a beer at the 2016 meeting for any member (21 and older) that can give me a defensible alternative species ID!