Something Fishy : Identity of Eel-Like Creature Eludes Experts

Stan D. Cummings, director of the Orange County Marine Institute, was stumped. So was biologist Harry Helling, associate director of the center in Dana Point Harbor.

Their quandary? A small, mostly black and very shy fish that looks like an eel and swims like an eel, but isn’t an eel.

So far, no one has been able to positively identify the tiny creature that was pulled from the bottom of the ocean by institute students April 30. Since then, it has spent most of its time hiding under the rocks of a saltwater tank while experts study it.

“All we really know is that it’s definitely a very uncommon fish,” Helling said. “We think we’re close to identifying it, but we need an ichthyologist to really tell us what it is.”

Ichthyologists who have examined photographs of the fish say it is probably a type of prickleback, a cold-water fish that is more common off the central California coast.

“From a photograph, it is very difficult to identify it, but we’re pretty certain it’s a prickleback, of which there are many varieties,” said Dr. Robert N. Lea, a marine biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game in Monterey.

The little fish was found during one of the institute’s daily educational tours, Helling said. Two institute instructors and a group of students from Apple Valley were a few hundred yards offshore when they pulled up a net from a depth of about 200 feet to inspect the contents.

There, along with the usual sand dabs, rockfish, lizard fish and turbot was this little black, slippery fish caught in the small end of the netting, Helling said.

“No one had seen it before,” Helling said. “It is all black, with a white stripe on its back and a very small mouth. Every once in awhile we get a rare fish, and we knew this was one.”

If it is a prickleback, it is more closely related to tuna or grouper than an eel, despite its size, said Rick Feeney, an ichthyologist with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

“They look and swim like eels, but they aren’t eels,” Feeney said. “Pricklebacks are mostly intertidal fish, meaning they stay close to the shore and hide in the grass and kelp. They can also change color to suit their surroundings and camouflage themselves.”

Indeed, the little fish at the institute often shows a maroon tint to its darkness, as well as a purple color, Helling said.

Pricklebacks are known to live as far south as northern Baja California, but they usually stay in cold, deep water, Lea said.

In tentatively identifying the fish as a prickleback, institute officials eliminated an early theory that it was a tropical creature pushed northward by El Nino, a warm-water current that appears to be building in the eastern Pacific Ocean. “It certainly has nothing to do with El Nino,” said Lea, an expert in El Nino currents.

Lea plans to visit the Orange County institute this summer with the hope of making a positive identification. To do that, he will need X-rays to check its internal anatomy, he said.

Dr. Richard Rosenblatt, an ichthyologist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, agreed that if it is a prickleback, it would be a rare find. But there are many other possibilities, he said.

“There are a lot of fish out there nobody’s seen yet,” Rosenblatt said. “The ocean off this coast has been explored since the 1800s, but there are a helluva lot of animals out there yet to be identified.”

Two-Lined Prickleback Scientific name: Esselenia laurae Description: Long, flat, eel-like fish with a small, slanted mouth; scales are tiny, often absent from part of the body; maroon with two off-white lines running near the top of the body from the head to the tail fins Length: Three inches Range: Farallon Islands off the coast of Northern California to Baja California Habitat: Cold water; 200-300 feet Remarks: Rare species, not scientifically identified until 1990 Verification process: Marine biologists first measure and count the fish’s fins; X-rays provide skeletal identification of the species; the fish must be closely examined to check for presence of a pelvic fin Note: If a pelvic fin is present, it will verify that it is a two-lined prickleback; if there is no pelvic fin, the fish is a three-lined prickleback Source: Orange County Marine Institute, California Fish and Game