REPRINT FROM
CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME
"CONSERVATION OF WILDLIFE THROUGH EDUCATION"
VOLUME 30
SAN FRANCISCO, JANUARY, 1944
NUMBER 1
EXTENSIONS OF RANGE FOR BLENNIOID FISHES
IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA'
By CARL L. HUBBS and PERCY S. BARNHART
University of Michigan and Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Specimens recently acquired by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography make it possible for us to extend the known range of three
blennioid fishes in southern California. These extensions of range have
a bearing on some of the general problems of fish distribution along the
West Coast.
Two of the records represent southern extensions of known occurrence. The single specimens each of Cebidichthys violaceus and of
Anarrhichthys ocellatus from near San Diego were taken at depths
greater than those usually frequented by the species farther north. Such
seems to be a common phenomenon. Tide-pool species of the north commonly occur below tidal limits farther south, and shallow-water species
of the colder latitudes live at greater depths in the south. The controlling
factor appears to be temperature. The principle represented is that of
isothermal distribution.
The other record, that of Ulvicola sanctae -rosae from the kelp beds
of the mainland, disproves the previous assumption that this species is
confined to the shores of the Channel Islands. The supposed distinctiveness of the Channel Islands fauna therefore receives another bit of contrary evidence. Only a few of the fish which have been known solely
from these islands, or have been recorded in southern California only
from islands, still remain unknown from the mainland. A sculpin,
Montereya recalva ( Greeley), may now also be deleted from the island
list. It has been attributed (Hubbs, 1926, p. 17), south of Pt. Conception, only to Los Coronados Islands, but on August 2, 1943, we took several
specimens in a reef-top pool at White's Point, near San Pedro.
Two of the records, for Cebidichthys and for Ulvicola, are for specimens taken in the beds of giant kelp. The Ulvicola would seem to be
perhaps the most common and most consistent inhabitant of the nearsurface waters in the kelp beds. These discoveries emphasize the very
scanty nature of knowledge of the fish life in the kelp beds, which constitute one of the main ecological communities of the southern California
coast. The fish fauna of the kelp would provide a very propitious field of
inquiry, with bearings on fish management as well as ecology.
Cebidichthys violaceus Ayres
This elongate blenny, the largest of the " eels" that are fished for
between tidal limits in central California, is commonly said to range from
northern California to "Point Conception" (a very loose term in statements of distribution). Hubbs (1927, p. 368) gave the range more precisely as Crescent City to Carpinteria, California, on the basis of collections from the tidal reefs. The record for Santa Cruz Island (Barnhart,
Submitted for publication, September, 1943.
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CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME
1936, pp. 87-88, fig. 265) refers to 28 specimens collected by Hubbs,
Croker and Fry in tide-pools on a reef at the west end of the island. The
southernmost published record is that of Clark (1936), for a 62 cm. adult
caught on a hand line at San Nicolas Island. We now extend the range
to San Diego County. A young specimen, 68 mm. in standard length,
was taken by Dr. Dennis Fox, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
in the holdfast of a kelp plant pulled up in the kelp beds off Pt. Loma.
South of Santa Cruz Island, the " monkeyfaced blenny eel" has never
been encountered in the numerous collections made by us and others in
the tide-pools and among the boulders of the intertidal zone of the rocky
reefs, its common habitat in central California. It appears that, to the
southward, the species inhabits deeper water, shunning the tidal zone
in which the water often becomes much warmer than in the open sea.
Ulvicola sanctae-rosae Gilbert and Starks
This ribbon-shaped blenny has been "definitely known only from
Santa Rosa and Santa Catalina Islands off southern California and
Guadalupe Island off Lower California" (Hubbs, 1927, p. 392). It has
therefore been treated as an island species. Until recently no specimens
had been collected along the mainland, and the only ones we had seen
were a half-grown from Isthmus Harbor, Santa Catalina Island, taken
by the University of Southern California on November 27, 1913, and an
adult taken at the surface with a dip-net by Hubbs, Croker and Fry, on
the night of August 28, 1934, in Forney 's Cove, near the west end of
Santa Cruz Island.
That Ulvicola also occurs along the mainland shore of southern California is proved by a collection of three adults, 224 to 268 mm. long,
secured by J. F. Wohnus on the deck of a kelp-cutter off Pt. Loma, May
17, 1942. According to investigators as well as workers at the kelp plants
"eels" of this type are regularly and frequently drawn up onto the
barges during the harvesting of the kelp. Despite the lack of previous
records we suspect that Ulvicola sanctae-rosae is a common member of
the fish fauna of the kelp beds, along the mainland as well as about the
offshore islands of southern and Lower California. An examination
made at the kelp plant of Philip R. Park, Inc., at San Pedro, confirms
this belief. Collecting as many fish as was practicable from a boat load of
about 170 tons of kelp which had been cut on August 6 about Gull Island
on the south shore of Santa Cruz Island, we obtained the following species
list :
Pipe fish, Syngnathus californiensis calif orniensis Storer : 1 adult
(3 to 4 dozen often taken on a trip).
Kelp blenny, Gibbonsia metzi Hubbs : 7, young to adult.
Kelp blenny, Heterostichus rostratus Girard : 3, young to adult.
Kelp-eel (as it may be called), Ulvicola sanctae-rosae Gilbert and
Starks : 33, large young (one) and adult.
Three other specimens of Ulvicola sanctae -rosae were secured during
the harvesting of kelp in West Cove, San Clemente Island, on August
17, 1943.
Anarririchthys ocellatus Ayres
The southernmost previous records of the "wolf-eel" are from
Venice (Ulrey and Greeley, 1928, p. 3) and off Redondo (Hubbs, 1916,
RANGE EXTENSIONS FOR BLENNIOID FISHES
51
p. 165), both in Los Angeles County. In the Cabrillo Beach Museum at
San Pedro there is a large mounted adult that was taken off Santa Catalina Island in October of 1937. Another, displayed in the Scripps Institution, was taken on August 6, 1941 by two fishermen (Dick Hiner and
Roley Ramson) at a depth of about 400 feet in the La Jolla Submarine
Canyon. This record constitutes a definite southward extension of range,
and suggests that this species, like certain other fishes, usually lives in
deeper water to the southward.
Literature Cited
Barnhart, Percy S.
1936. Marine fishes of southern California. Berkeley : University of California
Press, pp. i-iv, 1-209, figs. 1-290.
Clark, Frances N.
1936. Blenny eel in southern California. Calif. Fish and Game, vol. 22, No. 2,
p. 142.
Hubbs, Carl L.
1916. Notes on the marine fishes of southern California. Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool.,
vol. 16, pp. 153-169, pls. 18-20.
1926. A revision of the fishes of the subfamily Oligocottinae. Occ. Pap. Mus. Zool.
Univ. Mich., no. 171, pp. 1-18.
1927. Notes on the blennioid fishes of western North America. Pap. Mich. Acad.
Sci., Arts, and Letters, 7, 1926, pp. 351-394.
Ulrey, Albert B. and Greeley, Paul 0.
1928. A list of the marine fishes, (Teleostei) of southern California with their
distribution. Bull. Sou. Calif. Acad. Sci., 27, pp. 1-53.
printed in CALIFORNIA STATE PRINTING OFFICE
SACRAMENTO, 1944
GEORGE H. MOORE, STATE PRINTER
30535 2-44 700