Sandy Hook's Fishes
Sharks & Rays | Groundfish | Pelagic fish
Watch a video clip of a ray's eye and spiracle
Learn more about the fish of Sandy Hook Bay.
Try your luck identifying fish using our fish key.

 Dog bites dogfish!

A common find on the beach in the fall is a dogfish (Mustelus canis) that a fisherman has caught but not kept. They are edible, but also are considered bait stealers by fishermen and are rarely taken for food or released alive. During the spring and fall, when these sharks are migrating between their wintering grounds off the Carolinas and their summer grounds off New England, they are one of our most common fishes in New Jersey. (Much to the delight of our favorite canine!)

Cow-nosed stingrays (Rhinoptera) move north and into the bay when the water is warmest in August and September (Right).

The ray has a single spine on a whip tail. Skates have many small spines on the tail and elsewhere. They also have fins on the tail.


Clear-nosed skates (Raja) are present in the bay all year . Males have an extra set of clasper fins (Left), and they can be distinguished from the females .
 

The cartilaginous vertebrae of a shark is round and distinctive.To learn more about sharks, click here. and visit www.sharks.org An assortment of beach finds, including skate bones and the
tail of a horseshoe crab.


For more information on field trips and scheduling them, click here.

 
One of the most important activities of the day is to properly
rinse and stow all the equipment.


A great summer camp activity at the end of the
day is drawing or painting some of the specimens
we have seen.

 
The porgy is a great fish for Japanese
Fish Printing (Gyotaku)

 The relationship between age, length and weight of the striped bass. This information was collected from tags recovered from recaptured fishes. Growth peaks at about 14-years, 50-inches and about 50-pounds; however bass can grow to over 100-pounds!

(From Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources)

(Below-left) Perhaps the rarest and most endangered fish in the bay is the sturgeon. Carcasses like this are sometimes found on the beach. This ancient creature was over-harvested for its eggs (caviar) and world-famous flesh (Called "Albany beef" in the 1800's). It also has suffered greatly from habitat loss from dam construction and pollution, because it is anadromous (Swims upstream to spawn). Below is a close-up of the the primitive scutes that help identify it.

Learn more about threats to biodiversity.

 

  Try your luck identifying fishes with our fish key.

 
Pipefish (Sygnathus)

 
First-year Puffer (Spheroides)

 
Sand Eel (Ammodytes)

 

 
Striper (Roccus)

 
Killifish or Mummichog (Fundulus)

 
Flocks of gulls and terns diving on schools of
baitfishes alert fishermen that bluefish are
beneath the surface.
   

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