View allAll Photos Tagged flathead
The Foust family enrolled just over 300 acres of the Foust Farm in a Wetlands Reserve Easement. The Foust easement is located in a unique floodplain ecosystem in the Lower Flathead River area. Foust Farm, Lake County, Moiese, MT. June 2021.
Yesterday I took a step back in time to dive with a bunch of mates I have not dived with for more than decade.
Iâll write more about my experience in another post but for now here is one of the critters we discovered lazing on the deck of the barge (the wreck of the South Australian), a southern bluespot flathead.
Back soon; I promise â¦
MT Hwy 28 between Polson and Hot Springs, MT.
The county was created February 6, 1893 and named after the Salish Indians, who had been named "flatheads" by Lewis & Clark--though they did not flatten heads like tribes farther west.
After an afternoon catching a few trains and a rail grinder on the old MRL, it was time to head back home. On the way back home I came across this beautiful scene and had to stop and get a shot.
TAXONOMY
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes0
Order: Scorpaeniformes (Scorpionfishes and flatheads)
Family: Sebastidae (Rockfishes, rockcods and thornyheads)
Genus/species: Sebastes melanops
NOTE Eschmeyer (CAS curator emeritus) and others recognize Sebastidae as a separate family that includes only the rockfishes. Others place rockfish together with scorpionfish in the
single family Scorpaenidae.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS: Black to blue-black mottled with gray. Some individuals have lighter patches on back and a gray lateral stripe from head to tail. It is originally all-black, but turns a mottled gray on the sides with age, often nearing white. Lacks the dark head bands of the blue rockfish; also has more gray, a smaller mouth, and a longer jaw than the blue.
Length up to 64 cm (25 in)
DISTRIBUTION: West Coast of North America (Eastern Pacific: Amchitka Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska to Paradise Cove, Baja California, Mexico) where populations are stable.
Found down to a depth of 366 m.
DIET IN THE WILD: Fishes
REPRODUCTION: Sebastes sp.rockfish are slow-growing and extremely long-lived with black rockfish becoming sexually mature only after 6 to 8 years of age (max. reported age: 50 years). They have an elaborate courtship display followed by copulation and transfer of sperm via a modified urogenital papilla on the male.
The females store sperm in the ovaries for several months until ovulation then fertilization of the eggs. They are viviparous. The larvae mature in shallow water. Reference: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10641-006-9170-9#page-1
LONGEVITY: up to 36 years
CONSERVATION: IUCN; Not evaluated
References
Ron's Wordpress Shortlink wp.me/p1DZ4b-CP
fishbase www.fishbase.org/summary/3979
Pacific Coast Fishes Eschmeyer and Herald 1983 Easton Press page 143
California Academy of Sciences, Steinhart Aquarium, California Rocky Coast 2017
Probably More Than You Want To Know About The Fishes Of The Pacific Coast, Milton Love 1996 Really Big Press p171-173
eol eol.org/pages/209605/hierarchy_entries/27948249/details#m...
flickr www.flickr.com/photos/cas_docents/collections/72157608333...
Taken 7-11-12, 9-4-12, 5-23-14, 8-18-17
One of seven newly restored ponds as part of Wetland Reserve Program on Foust Farm. Thousands of waterfowl migrate to the warm water springs during the winter months. These recently re-accessed waterways provide important wintering habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife. The Foust family enrolled just over 300 acres of the Foust Farm in a Wetlands Reserve Easement. The Foust easement is located in a unique floodplain ecosystem in the Lower Flathead River area. Foust Farm, Lake County, Moiese, MT. June 2021.
One of our flat-out favoritest places on Earth! Wikipedia: Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the western part of the contiguous United States. With a surface area of about 197 sq. mi. (510 km2), it is slightly larger than Lake Tahoe. The lake is a remnant of the ancient inland sea, Lake Missoula of the era of the last interglacial. Flathead Lake is 27.3 mi (43.9 km) long and up to 15.5 mi (24.9 km) wide. Its known maximum depth is 370.7 ft (113.0 m), making it deeper than the average depths of the Yellow Sea or the Persian Gulf. The lake was raised 10 ft (3.0 m) by Kerr Dam. It is one of the cleanest in the populated world for its size and type.