grunion greeting, 2014 #4

female California grunion dug in sand laying eggs

while 4 males cluster around her head

Leuresthes tenuis
(CDFW)

 

It was all about the group fish p0rn this late 3rd night, high tide after the full moon.  We spotted numerous clusters of 4-5 males per female, as compared to one on one.  This only seems to happen when the runs are heavier, which makes sense.  The females are quite acrobatic, flipping themselves straight up into the air out of the sand to catch the next big wave back to the ocean.  It's totally fun to watch under the light of the full moon.

open season
4 spotted cusk-eels, 1 northern anchovy(?), several grunion

Steve the Fisherman was there (must recruit him!) with 6 other people and 2 buckets when we arrived.  They were the same folks from last year June 8 when Bob Lea measured fish.  They remembered me and asked if I wanted take measurements of their hand catch.  I did, which is a little tricky with wet fish and wet paper and wet pen and wet sand.  Have I mentioned it was wet?  And cold?  I have no idea what I was doing.  They told me they arrived around 10:30, started seeing cusk-eels around 11, and then the grunion followed with ~25 at a time.  I was impressed with how much they knew.  There was a tiny silver fish in their bucket (at 3 o'clock above) that did not look like a grunion.  I'm totally making a guess that it's an anchovy, because my other flash pics of it in my hand, in the dark, did not provide any detail.

W-2 (shown above) and possible W-3 closer to the wharf

grunion greeting

Considering the bucket-toting folks were next to the wharf, Andy and I walked down the beach. About 250 yards down, there were another couple spots of grunion.  We stood between the two locations for most of our watch.  Andy walked down to the cement structure past a bonfire group, and he didn't find any additional grunion spots.  A couple hundred came up in a few waves around 12:30, but mostly it was maybe a dozen to 30 or so at a time over the course of 45 minutes that we observed them.  When we returned to the wharf, the group described hundreds coming up onto a long flat section of the beach.  It sounded like a W-3 to me.  For Monterey, this was a good grunion night.  To compare with my past observations, click to see a definite W-3 and a fantastic W-4.

06/12/14 full moon 9:13pm
06/14/14 high tide 11:51pm 6.16 ft
beaches: Municipal
Charlies: 6 + 1 western gull + flock of unknown gulls
others: Andy, Steve the Fisherman, 6 other people grunion fishing by hand, and a bonfire group
my observation time: 11:29pm - 12:57pm
W-2, 30 at a time already running on arrival, couple hundred at a time max

grunion greeting, 2014 #3

prejuvenile spotted cusk-eel

Chilara taylori

(Kindergarten-level info)

While we were out on the nighttime beach looking for grunion, it quickly became all about the cusk-eel for J and me.  Armed with a flashlight under the complete darkness of the clear skies and new moon, we eventually found 4 or 5 after waves washed out (we had different counts, and we didn't even need a 2nd hand to count - ha!).  They seemed a bit lethargic, kind of like the grunion I observed on May 15 (Something weird is going on, because even in SoCal the grunion are inexplicably beaching themselves and not in a good way.)  One cusk-eel we found wiggled its entire body down, tail first, not too dissimilar to what a grunion does when she lays eggs, except the cusk-eel completely disappeared into the sand.  We also noticed numerous mini-craters that noisily bubbled water as the waves receded.  J kept saying, "It totally sounds like a spa!"  Ya, the waves were relatively calm this night for us to hear the bubbling.  We're wondering if all the cratered holes were created by the freshly dug cusk-eels?  There were also a handful of cancer crabs and sand crabs digging down in the sand, but nothing thin enough to make a drill-like hole.

It's thanks to Dr. Guacamole (that's not his real name, btw) for alerting me to the fact my crappy photo "eel" from July 9, 2013 was a cusk-eel, but all I could recall to tell J this night was that it wasn't a real eel and was actually a fish.  Dr. Martin also chimed in and eventually I was able to get "retired" CDFW Bob Lea's expert ID down to species.  He cowrote the technical report Checklist of Fishes Known to Occur in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary with Erica Burton last year.  And thankfully, considering I'm bugging some very busy people with my ID questions, they were glad to get my observations and photos.  I'm guessing not a lot of people report cusk-eel sightings.  This is only the second time I've ever seen them in all my grunion nights.  I've seen grunion more times than cusk-eels, and that might be saying something. 

I found the burrowing tail first to be fascinating, especially in the exact same spot we've seen the grunion lay eggs.  What makes this beach so great for these sand-loving fish?  The extremely calm waters and fine sand?  With Bob's permission, this is what he said about my photo above, "The cusk-eel is a prejuvenile Spotted Cusk-eel, Chilara taylori.  At this size the spots have not yet developed; I am guessing the fish in photo is ca. 5 to 6 inches in length.  Cusk-eels enter the substrate tail first and their caudal structure is modified, fusion of bony elements, enabling them to do this.  There have been several papers discussing tail-standing and burrowing in cusk-eels and I can send you the references if you are interested.  Chilara taylori was originally described from the beach at Monterey in 1858.  We encountered prejuvenile fish last year (July or August) solving a puzzle that I did not know the answer to until then.  Also, the prejuvenile stage is nektonic and the fish you saw are in the transition process of changing from a pelagic to benthic existence.  Good to get your observation."  Man, it's been forever since I've seen someone use "ca." - no offense to Bob.  Fortunately, after having watched Bob measure grunion last year, I thought to throw down my lined-note pad next to the cusk-eel for a photo and then later the lined-note pad with a ruler to get an accurate read of size (I don't take my favorite ruler out for fear of losing it in the waves).  So, I sent a second set of photos.  The one shown above is only ~3 3/4" long, which turns out to be in the typical 70 to 100mm range.  Bob collected 20 specimens last year, and they're now housed at CalAcademy (CAS 236552).  I wonder how long they live?  Holes and infrequent sightings make me think of periodical cicadas which develop en masse every 13 or 17 years.

I should mention that I had a very difficult time finding an ID match online a couple weeks back when I was updating my July 9, 2013 post, but that's not surprising for marine life.  Little did I know the cusk-eels I've seen aren't the fully spotted adults yet.  Ha!  There are several SCUBA divers' community groups that share wonderful photos of marine animals.  Makes me wonder if any of them have ever seen grunion, because so little is known about their behavior off the sand and in the water.

Charlie

black-crowned night heron
Nycticorax nycticorax

I'm always entertained by Charlie.  Over the course of half an hour 3 Charlies showed up and were unusually friendly with us as we stood at the water line with them.  I think they snatched up a couple tiny cusk-eels.

grunion greeting

Leuresthes tenuis 

(CDFW)

Eh, we only saw 2 waves of 6 grunion each (whippee) not too far from the cement structure down the beach.  I reported it as a W-1, because Dr. Martin instructed me that any sighting at all is significant for the Monterey Bay.  It was a mellow night, good to be out with J, and always fun to find new things.  Oh!  We also quickly stopped at San Carlos Beach on our way home.  No grunion there.

05/28/14 full moon 11:43am
05/29/14 high tide 11:18pm 5.52 ft
beaches: Municipal, San Carlos
Charlies: 3 + 3 western gulls
others: J, Steve the Fisherman (yes, he was there - I should recruit him!)
my observation time: 10:27pm - 12:10pm
W-1, 2 sets of 6 (same individuals?) near cement structure down beach 11:33-11:38pm.

grunion greeting, 2013 #4

cusk-eel, grunion, and other fish

grunion

Leuresthes tenuis
more information

grunion greeting

new moon cycle, 11:05-12:39, cloudy skies

This was a pleasant night and a nice way to finish off my birthday activities. When we arrived at the beach, 13 people were already there with buckets containing grunion, cusk-eels, and other fish. The local fisherman in the bunch said they arrived at 10pm and saw about 20 grunion thus far. This was their first time out since learning about grunion from the CA Fish and Wildlife schedule.  The other groups were a young family and a couple individuals.  Somewhat unusual compared to past grunion nights, everyone seemed incredibly respectful of the grunion (e.g., waiting until the female was done laying eggs before collecting her) and curious about what else was on the beach (e.g., Charlie and 3 of his night heron friends, a medium-sized sea turtle making its way parallel to shore, bioluminescence they had witnessed 3 nights before while sardine fishing).

I asked to take a quick picture of one of the small cusk-eels they had in their bucket before they let it go. It's too bad it's such a crappy photo. In any case, I discovered it's very difficult to find online information about the different kinds of eel-like animals. Fishbase.org has a searchable db, but like BugGuide in its early days, it needs more content to truly become a user-friendly site. Can anyone recommend an eel ID site?

At 12:07, we were all starting to pack up when another decent run of 60-80 grunion came up with a big wave. We stayed for the next half hour with another 2 runs at 12:20 and 12:37. I've reported this night as a W-1.  It certainly wasn't as exciting as May 26 (W-4), May 25 (W-3), or June 8 (W-2), 2013, but way better than no grunion (W-0) as has happened too many times in past years.

ps 05/18/14 - Thanks to a grunion greeting e-mail exchange with Dr. Guacamole and Dr. Martin and quotes from Bob Lea, the unidentified eel above has been identified as not a true eel, but a cusk-eel.  As to species, I can't say for sure.  Although, spotted cusk-eel (Chilara taylori) is mentioned quite a bit online for this area.  Paperbone (Lamprogrammus niger) and giant (Spectrunculus grandis) are reported for Monterey Bay as well.