Fishes Other Than Surfperches

Here I feature some fishes, other than surfperches, that I’ve caught in the surf zone, or found washed up on northern Oregon beaches. The common names and organization are more or less those of Love (1996) and Miller and Lea (1972).

Blue Shark, Prionace glauca– This one washed ashore on December 8, 2019, on Samoa Beach, California. Looks to be bycatch.

Big Skate, Raja binoculata– This is the egg case. It was featured in Mermaids Purse.

Big skate egg case | This is how I found it- a dog beat me to it!

Flipped over for a more traditional view

The big skate can produce a good-sized egg case, this one longer than a pounder can

Spotted ratfish, Hydrolagus colliei

Pacific herring, Clupea pallasi

Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax

American shad, Alosa sapidissima

Silver or coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch

Longnose lancetfish, Alepisaurus ferox– This lancetfish appeares in Oceanic Predator Washes onto the Beach, and these lancetfish photos are courtesy Mary and Sam Phillips.

Longnose lancetfish, Alepisaurus ferox | photo courtesy Mary and Sam Phillips

Longnose lancets have a high dorsal fin | photo courtesy Mary and Sam Phillips

Longnose lancets have a big mouth and big teeth | photo courtesy Mary and Sam Phillips

Three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus, aculeatus– The sticklebacks I come across are ones cast up onto the beach. They live in almost every coastal stream. Why do they end up in the surf? Threespine sticklebacks appear in Stranded Sticklebacks.

Three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus, aculeatus

Why do they end up in the surf?

Sticklebacks are no match for Oregon’s surf

Greenling (juvenile), Hexagrammos – The tow images below are the same fish, first when I encountered it cast up on the beach, then cleaned up and released into a sand-filled tide-pool. This juvenile Hexagrammos  appears in Stranded Greenling raises eternal question: To Assist or Not Assist?

A sad little beach cast Hexagrammos

Cleaned up and released into a tide pool, it shows off more curves than most 75 mm fish can

Pacific staghorn sculpin, Leptocottus armatus

Leptocottus armatus is a camouflage artist | Look for a black spot on the first dorsal fin

Quite a nice pattern on those pectoral fins

Staghorns get their common name from antler-like extensions on the preoperculum

Sand sole, Psettichthys melanostictus

Unidentified juvenile pleuronectid- I found this nearly transparent beach cast juvenile on the central Oregon coast, July 2018.

Common mola, ocean sunfish, Mola mola

References

Love, M. 1996. Probably more than you want to know about the fishes of the Pacific coast. Really Big Press, Santa Barbara, California.

Miller, D. J. and R. N. Lea. 1972. Guide to the Coastal Marine Fishes of California. California Fish Bulletin Number 157. California Department of Fish and Game, Sacramento.