North Carolina Frog Fish?

[Steve_C]

I find frog fish interesting but they are easy to miss. A web search shows that four species have been reported in NC. I have never seen one off NC.

Has anybody seen one off NC?

Where and what time of year did you see it?

Which species?

I don't know if they are extremely rare or since we have not been looking for them we do not see them.

 

[Garth]

Alright I don't know a species but it was like a brown color off of Wilmington, NC in like 60ft of water during the summer months. Te only reason I saw it was by noticing a plum of sand then waiting to see of anything would happen. I snuck in on my rebreather and found the frog fish perched in the hole....


Garth

 

[Hank49]

I've never dived in the Carolinas but I spent many hours in the Philippines trying to find frogfish...on my own. There were dive sites where you were guaranteed to see some because they stayed on their little sponge. But finding one....is hard. You can look right at one and not see it. Not as hard as a pygmy seahorse but hard nonetheless. Good luck. Take pictures.

 

[Steve_C]

Alright I don't know a species but it was like a brown color off of Wilmington, NC in like 60ft of water during the summer months. Te only reason I saw it was by noticing a plum of sand then waiting to see of anything would happen. I snuck in on my rebreather and found the frog fish perched in the hole....


Garth

That's encouraging. I enjoy hunting around in the sand if there might be something to see. I dive off Wilmington several times a year. Was this in the vicinity of any of the usual dive sites or artificial reefs? Not that it would still be there but trying to get a feel for promising habitat.

 

[Mike Campbell]

July. Hutton (Ario) in the grassy flattened area in front of the boilers. One time in all the years I have dived here.
Mike

 

[agilis]

Over the past several decades of collecting marine tropicals in New Jersey I've caught two Frogfish, both Antennarius striatus. Both were juveniles, not quite 2 inches long. One was caught in the Manasquan Inlet, the other just outside Barnegat Bay. These are late summer Gulf Stream strays. If they make it all the way up here to NJ, there must be many more in the Carolinas. Both were in about 20+ feet of water, on a sandy bottom among heavily encrusted half buried wooden structure and very near an inlet.

 

[Steve_C]

Thanks all for the info

Sounds like a quest coming on. Unlikely but there is a chance so I'll keep an eye open for them. Makes diving sites I have done before more interesting. I like to poke around. Ran across a scientific paper by a NC marine biologist. He said two are more out in ocean, 2 are more near shore and some times in the sounds but he had not seen any for a while.

Started looking out for nudibranchs a couple years ago. Not many but did find two warty sea slugs which have not been reported north of Georgia. Found two other species also.

Frog fish are amazingly good at hiding in plain sight. Spotted one once in Hawaii on a rock face. Right in front of us and then we suddenly saw it. As I was taking pictures the rock next to it moved also.