Newfoundland Lumpsucker

Eumicrotremus terranovae

Small fish with a short, stout body. Large head with a small, thick-lipped mouth. Its body doesn't have scales but is covered in large, rough, conical tubercules. Colour variable - may be orange or pink/purple. Differs from the spiny lumpsucker in having more tubercules. It has tubercules on its chin where the spiny lumpsucker has fleshy folds. Also six irregularly placed tubercules between its eyes where the spiny lumpsucker has four regularly spaced ones.

Authority

Myers & Böhlke, 1950

Classification Details

Phylum: Chordata (chordates); Subphylum: Vertebrata (vertebrates); Class: Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes).

Habitat

Lives on a variety of different seabeds. Known from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland south to the Gulf of Maine.

Diet

Planktivore. Related species from Europe eat Amphipod shrimp.

Reproduction

We don't know much about reproduction in this species. Eggs are small (two to four millimetres) and may be laid on rocky seabeds.

Fun Facts

This species was described from Newfoundland. Many specimens have been identified previously as the spiny lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus spinosus) which tends to have a more northerly distribution, occurring into the Arctic. There was some doubt as to whether the Newfoundland lumpsucker was indeed a separate species. However, recently scientists have used genetic barcoding (sequencing a small piece of the fish's DNA) to help confirm that it is a true species and shown that many records had been misidentified as other species.

References

Mecklenburg C, Steinke D (2015) Ichthyofaunal Baselines in the Pacific Arctic Region and RUSALCA Study Area. Oceanography 28(3), 158-189 available online at https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.64

Myers G S, Böhlke JE (1950) A new lump-sucker of the genus Eumicrotremus from the northwestern Atlantic. Stanford Ichthyological Bulletin 3(4), 199-202.