NANFA-L-- Sculpin temperature tolerance

ichthos at comcast.net
Thu, 15 Sep 2005 19:42:33 +0000

I have found that sculpin caught in southern waters -- such as ones I brought back from Ft. Payne, AL -- survived higher temps than ones I collected locally in Maryland. My basement fish tanks hit 82F in the summer; the Maryland sculpins start dying at around 75F. (The same should be true for all native fishes.)

I read in a scientific paper somewhere that the reason sculpins die at higher temperatures is not because there is less oxygen in the water. It's because a vital oxygen-metabolizing enzyme or protein in their hemoglobin begins to break down when the water heats up.

Chris Scharpf
Baltimore
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