small fish with man-o-war

Hi Guys,

I shot a man-o-war with a small fish, that's not the usual man-o-war fish. This was over a seamount 15 miles off Bermuda in the mid atlantic. I've done a bit of digging and can't find anything like this. theres is a group of "Caristiidae - (Manefishes)" who's drawings and general description seems similar, but the photos i've seen are drastically different, all of them being deep sea fish with large eyes.

the last one is probably best for colour, as i was able to white balance on the engine casing. it was definitely brownish, the first giveaway it wasn't a man-o-war fish when we first saw it. any ideas? cheers

chris

Classifying juvenile fish is REALLY hard. If I had to guess I'm thinking juvi Sheapshead or juvi triplefin.

Cheers

James

Hi Chris,

Lovely shot!

Don't you think it is still some sort of driftfish, still related to the man o war fish? The black driftfish ((Hyperoglyphe bythites) and the closely related barrelfish (H. perciformis) have the distinctive lower 1st dorsal that connects to the second dorsal, like in your pics.

Get a copy of Peterson's Atlantic Coast Fishes and look at the drawings on page 50, don't you think it's a young juv black driftfish?

Just my 2 cents, you could also send it to Paul Humann or Ned DeLoach, Ned for one did tons of diving in the Bahamas and may have seen it. But the driftfishes are all over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

I've had a time myself trying to tell apart the different driftfishes that I sometimes see with jellies. Also like in James post to tell the difference and make sure they are not juvs of some other species. Although that doesn't look like a juv sheepshead or triplefin to me; plus I doubt those two would be inclined to associate with p man o war, takes special fishes to do that..., usually one of the driftfishes?

Cheers, Carol

Hi Chris,

Great shot that first one. Carol is definitely on to something, I agree with her on the family, and I am sure it is in the family Centrolophidae, also known as medusafishes; they are all known to associate with jellyfishes and Portuguese man-o-war near the surface when juveniles. Identification to species is a bit more difficult, but we can take clues from their distributions. The Black Driftfish (Carol's first guess) was never recorded in Bermuda, but Imperial Blackfish (Schedophilus ovalis) is commonly captured off Bermuda. There is a photo of a juvenile Imperial Blackfish in the book "Fishes of Bermuda" that looks identical to yours, and the authors mention that the fish was captured under a man-o-war 10 miles off Bermuda. So my vote goes for the Imperial Blackfish.

i've gotten pretty solid confirmation that it's an Imperial Blackfish. thanx for the input. cheers

chris