Meeting Abstract

P2.48  Saturday, Jan. 5  Kinematics of Feeding in Sarcastic Fringeheads, Neoclinus blanchardi (Teleostei: Blenniiformes) BAETTIG, C. G.*; MILLER, L. B.; HASTINGS, P. A.; MEHTA, R. S.; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Univ. of California, Santa Cruz cbaettig@ucsc.edu

Suction feeding is the most prevalent mode of prey capture in teleosts. Despite this dominance, suction ability varies greatly among teleosts as a consequence of differences in skull morphology. For example, previous studies have shown that although larger mouths allow predators to take in larger prey, larger gapes generate less force than smaller gapes. We investigated the kinematics of feeding behavior in the sarcastic fringe head, Neoclinus blanchardi, a fish with enormous jaws used in dramatic “gaping displays” with conspecifics. Because of their large mouths we hypothesized that N. blanchardi uses a strategy of a ram suction feeder, relying on both suction and fast swimming bursts to overtake prey. We find the prey capture kinematics to be quite conserved in this species, with peak lower jaw rotation followed temporally by other peak events such as cranial elevation, hyoid depression, and average time to prey capture. Peak hyoid depression, however, is maintained for a significantly longer period than other kinematic variables. We categorize N. blanchardi as a ram suction feeder. Similar to other fishes for which suction feeding kinematics has been studied, the prey item does not move toward the predator’s mouth until one gape width from the predator. Interestingly, N. blanchardi does not utilize its maximum gape during prey capture. Irrespective of its burst swimming speed, the sarcastic fringe head appears to only use half of its maximum gape to capture prey. This suggests that these fish are capable of modulating their gape size differently when feeding versus displaying to conspecifics.