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Salmo scouleri (now Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) - The Pink Salmon
Sometimes known as the humpback salmon or humpie, due to the humped back that males develop during spawning season.
Like all salmon, clearly one of the top predators in its ecosystem. The pink salmon is the smallest and most abundant of their family, but is still imperiled within California (though they only exist as far south as Sacramento) and Washington. On the West Pacific (throughout the Siberian and part of the Korean coastline), within British Columbia, and in Alaskan populations, the species is stable.
Fauna Boreali-Americana; or the zoology of the northern parts of British America.: containing descriptions of the objects of natural history collected on the late northern land expeditions, under the command of Sir John Franklin. Part 3: The Fish. John Richardson, 1836.
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Acipenser transmontanus and Acipenser rupertinus (now Acipenser fulvescens) - White Sturgeon and Lake Sturgeon
Some fish are just plain terrifying.
Fauna Boreali-Americana; or the Zoology of the Northern Parts of British America. John Richardson, 1836.
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Malthe (Lophius) cubifrons (now Ogcocephalus cubifrons) - The Polka-dot Batfish
You might be able to tell from how it’s built that this is a bottom-dwelling fish, but the part I love about it is its behavior when it gets startled by scuba divers: just like another bottom-dweller, the crab, it either freezes and covers itself in sand, OR it literally scuttles away! I love scuttling creatures. Even non-crabs or crab-like ones. They’re so…scuttly!
Fauna Boreali-Americana; or the zoology of the northern parts of British America.: containing descriptions of the objects of natural history collected on the late northern land expeditions, under the command of Sir John Franklin. Part 3: The Fish. John Richardson, 1836.
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It baffles my mind that things with a face like can still this make humans go “YOU LOOK DELICIOUS”. I mean, all of the predatory fish are scary-looking, but this guy is just… *shudder* The lack of eyes does not help.
Fauna Boreali-Americana. John Richardson, 1836.
