Northwest Dive Club

Am I the only person who has trouble with these? I think the smoothhead is a smoothhead due to the "duck bill" head. I couldn't get close enough to see flesh covered spines on the operculum. Anybody have a cheat sheet to tell these guys apart? Often you can't get up close and personal with these guys before they book off on you.

Trust me, you're not the only one who has problems with these guys.
Both pictures appear to be padded sculpins- can see the big nasal spines/nostrils in the first picture, and the large scales show up well in the second. Both have just one cirrus at the corner of the mouth, whereas scalyheads and smoothheads generally have more than one.

The orange gills on the scalyheads are very useful, if you can see them.

Sculpins is pesky little buggers. I think Greg is about the only one around that has a handle on them! Especially the three mentioned here. Greg has a scupin reference program that is really nice to have but I don't know the URL to download it. Scalyheads are probably the easiest because the adults have what I call an antenna farm on their heads. They look as if they have horns. They also have a white spot at the base of the tail.

Scalyheads also have three fairly prominent stripes through their eyes. I use that one a lot.

Thanks! It was a padded, huh? I usually see them with that weird breeding patch on the head that the males get....OK, so this picture would be a scalyhead? These ones I look for the spots on the side and the many cirri near the mouth. SOMETIMES they have a bunch of prominent cirri on the head but this one does not....We should do a "strictly sculpin" ID dive one of these days! Sorry to drive people crazy with this...I like to get my ID right but these small sculpins can be so cryptic at times..... :angry:

Yes that's a scallyhead, If you look closely at the full size picture you can see the cirri on the head.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks sculpins were placed underwater to shorten the lives of the divers who try to identify them! Being both small and often skittish makes them awfully difficult to pin down.

I don't have the URL for downloading Greg's sculpin resource any more, either, although I have the file. It helps, but nothing helps when you can't get the darned fish to stand still while you carefully evaluate the length of the jaw and the number of spines or scales

The website is www.molamarine.com
just click on the sculpin to download the exe file (hopefully you have a pc or mac with pc emulator...)

also if you're a member of REEF (costs nothing to join) you can watch the sculpin i.d. "fishinar" that I did last summer- "Sculpins under Scrutiny" --look under 'resources' on the REEF website. You'll have to request a viewing from Queen Janna.

Greg's Sculpin ebook is the only thing that has kept me remotely sane in the Sculpin world, and has gotten me to where I can kind of sort of every now and then ID them with confidence.

Download it, use it often, take many pics, if you are uncertain get as many angles as you can, and if still not sure there is this handy dandy little category on the REEF ID form - "Unknown Sculpin". Once I swallowed my pride I have used it more than once!

Tom Nic wrote:Greg's Sculpin ebook is the only thing that has kept me remotely sane in the Sculpin world, and has gotten me to where I can kind of sort of every now and then ID them with confidence.

Download it, use it often, take many pics, if you are uncertain get as many angles as you can, and if still not sure there is this handy dandy little category on the REEF ID form - "Unknown Sculpin". Once I swallowed my pride I have used it more than once!

You could be embarrassed but considering Jana herself admits to having trouble with them It's a bit hard to feel bad about a lack of certainty. When you are supposed to count rays in the fins or look for nasal spines on a fish that is 2 to 3" long and won't stand still it's pretty damn hard to make a confident statement of fact.