Contribution to the Study of the Fishes of Ungava Bay

Abstract

The aquatic environment of the Ungava Bay area and watershed is described. Forty-four species of fishes are recorded, belonging to twenty-one families. Twenty-nine are marine forms, two are anadromous, and thirteen are predominantly or entirely freshwater forms. Seventeen are new records for Ungava Bay, and a few are new for the whole of the Canadian Eastern Arctic. The marine piscine fauna is shown to be in the main subarctic, containing such arctic-subarctic forms as Salvelinus alpinus, Reinhardtius hippoglossoidès, Gymnocanthus tricuspis, Icelus bicornis, Aspidophoroides olriki, Lumpenus fabricii, etc., and subarctic-boreal species such as Salmo solar, Gadus callarias, Sebastes marinus, Liparis atlanticus and Mallotus villosus. More strictly arctic species in the fauna are Boreogadus saida, Triglops nybelini and Oncocottus quadricornis; there are two Atlantic boreal species recorded, Faralepis rissoi kröyeri and Lampanyctus crocodilus, and the remainder are fishes of wide north-south range, found in all three zones (arctic, subarctic, boreal), such as Somniosus microcephalus, Myctophum glaciale, Ammodytes dubius, Triglops pingeli, Eumicrotremus spinosus, Liparis tunicatus, Lumpenus maculatus, Lycodes reticulatus.