Observations on the Comparative Ecology and Life History of Two Sea Robins, Prionotus carolinus and Prionotus evolans strigatus

Abstract

WO main incentives underlie this study. One stems from the desirability of learning more about marine food resources, especially since recent food shortages have made us more conscious of hitherto little used palatable fishes such as these sea robins. Included in this paper are data on weightlength relationships, abundance of size groups, relative abundance and other pertinent life history facts concerning Prionotus carolinus and Prionotus evolans strigatus. With such records, taken when these fish are not subject to an intensive fishery, the biologist will be able to make more intelligent analyses of the effects of fishing effort, if and when these species are taken in large numbers. Such an approach to possible fisheries problems of the future, recommended by many far-sighted biologists, is impractical unless research efforts are concentrated on those species which show some likelihood of utilization. The marketing of these sea robins has never been great,2 many simply being used as bait when taken, but should these two species once meet with favor on the market, they could be taken in great numbers as an outstanding element (now being discarded as trash) of the pound net and inshore trawler catches. The enthusiastic recommendations of many who have tasted sea robins make it seem probable that trends toward broadening our current limited marketing of sea foods will encourage the utilization of this unexploited resource. Another incentive issues from the desire to compare two such similar species inhabiting the same region. These two fishes, Prionotus carolinus and Prionotus evolans strigatus, are abundant during spring, summer, and early fall months in coastal waters off southern New England and the middle Atlantic states, no other triglids being common to this region. Their distribution, discussed by Jordan and Evermann (1898), Bigelow and Welsh (1925), Nichols and Breder (1927), Hildebrand and Schroeder (1928), and others, is such that they are found only in small numbers to the north of Cape Cod and extend southward as far as the coastal waters of South Carolina, the population of P. evolans off the Carolina coasts being referred to as