I have been posting Picture’s of the Week on Facebook and neglecting my blog. It is time to change that so I will post the POTW on my blog and link it to the book’s Facebook page. This week’s subject is the ocean pout, Macrozoarces americanus. They are a funny looking fish with a face that only a mother could love and a body like an eel.
This is the way that I usually find them, singly or in pairs with only their heads sticking out of a hole. It is unusual to see them out and swimming around. When they are, it might be because the oxygen levels are low on the bottom of the ocean. They do not have swim bladders so when oxygen levels are low, they will come out of their holes and try to move higher in the water column by going up higher on an artificial reef, wreck or rock pile.
Another interesting fact about ocean pouts is that they have antifreeze proteins in their blood that allows them to survive in near-freezing water. That is pretty cool! Now they just need to find a protein that will make them look pretty!
© 2014, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.
