''Cottus asper'' is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% ...

in the sculpin family known by the common name prickly sculpin. It is native to the river drainages of the Pacific Slope of North America from

Seward, Alaska Seward (Alutiiq: ; Dena'ina: ''Tl'ubugh'') is an incorporated home rule city in Alaska, United States. Located on Resurrection Bay, a fjord of the Gulf of Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula, Seward is situated on Alaska's southern coast, approximat ...

south to the

Ventura River The Ventura River, in western Ventura County in southern California, United States, flows from its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean. The smallest of the three major rivers in Ventura County, it flows through the steeply sloped, narrow Ventura ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

. It extends east of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, no ...

in the

Peace River The Peace River (french: links=no, rivière de la Paix) is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River joins the Athabasca River ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

. It has also been introduced to several

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

s in Southern California.Fuller, P. and M. Neilson. 2013
''Cottus asper''.
USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL.

Description

This fish can reach about 30 centimeters in length, but it is usually smaller, often around 7 centimeters.Froese, R
''Cottus asper''.
In: Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2011. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. It is mature at 2 to 4 years of age,NatureServe. 2013
''Cottus asper''.
NatureServe Explorer: An Online Encyclopedia of Life eb application and its maximum lifespan is around 7 years. It is brown, gray, or olive green on its upper parts and white or yellowish ventrally. There are dark spots or bars on the back and dark bars on most of the fins. The breeding male is darker in color than the female and nonbreeding male.Rickard, N. A. (1980)
Life history and population characteristics of the prickly sculpin (''Cottus asper'' Richardson) in Lake Washington. (Thesis).
University of Washington. Both sexes develop an orange coloration along the edge of the first dorsal fin during breeding. The

pectoral fins Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as s ...

are large and fan-shaped. The body of the fish is prickly; inland-dwelling fish tend to be more prickly than those at the coast.

Biology

There are two main forms of the species. The inland form lives in lakes, while the coastal form lives in rivers and swims down into

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environme ...

to breed. A

catadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

species, it is tolerant of high and low

salinities Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensionless and equal to ...

. It is generally a

bottom-dwelling The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning ...

species. It is nocturnal, feeding at night. The diet of the fish includes water invertebrates, insects and their larvae, salmon eggs, fish larvae, especially those of the

Sacramento sucker The Sacramento sucker (''Catostomus occidentalis'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Catostomidae. It is primarily found in California with some populations extending into Oregon and Nevada. They inhabit a diverse range of habitats f ...

(''Catostomus occidentalis occidentalis''), and

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

, especially ''

Daphnia ''Daphnia'' is a genus of small planktonic crustaceans, in length. ''Daphnia'' are members of the order Anomopoda, and are one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas because their saltatory swimming style resemb ...

'' spp.Merz, J. E. (2002)
Comparison of diets of prickly sculpin and juvenile fall-run Chinook salmon in the lower Mokelumne River, California.
''The Southwestern Naturalist'' 47(2) 195-204. Larger sculpins eat small fish, frogs, and molluscs.''Cottus asper''.
California Fish Website. University of California. The adults are known to

cannibalize Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...

the juveniles. In its habitat it lives alongside its relative, the

coastrange sculpin The Coastrange sculpin (''Cottus aleuticus'') is a freshwater sculpin of the genus '' Cottus''. They are commonly found near the ocean in western North America, namely Canada and the United States. It is also known as the Aleutian sculpin. Taxo ...

(''Cottus aleuticus''), which is quite similar to it in terms of

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

and behavior.Brown, L. R., et al. (1995)
Comparative ecology of prickly sculpin, ''Cottus asper'', and coastrange sculpin, ''Cottus aleuticus'', in the Eel River, California.
''Environmental Biology of Fishes'' 42 329-43.White, J. L. and B. C. Harvey. (1999)
Habitat separation of prickly sculpin, ''Cottus asper'', and coastrange sculpin, ''Cottus aleuticus'', in the mainstem Smith River, northwestern California.
''Copeia'' 2 371-75. It can also be found with the

three-spined stickleback The three-spined stickleback (''Gasterosteus aculeatus'') is a fish native to most inland and coastal waters north of 30°N. It has long been a subject of scientific study for many reasons. It shows great morphological variation throughout its ra ...

(''Gasterosteus aculeatus''),

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

(''Oncorhynchus mykiss''), Klamath small-scale sucker (''Catostomus rimiculus''),

coastal cutthroat trout The coastal cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii''), also known as the sea-run cutthroat trout, blue-back trout or harvest trout, is one of the several subspecies of cutthroat trout found in Western North America. The coastal cutthroa ...

(''Oncorhynchus clarki clarki''),

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...

(''O. tshawytscha''), and

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species n ...

(''O. kisutch'').

Spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aqua ...

season can extend from February to June. The male creates a nest under debris such as logs or garbage, and the female lays many eggs, from a few hundred up to 11,000. The male guards the nest.Prickly Sculpin, ''Cottus asper''.
Marine Species with Aquaculture Potential Off the Coast of Oregon and Pacific Northwest. He may breed with more than one female per season.

Range

This fish is common in most of its range, becoming quite abundant in the summer when

recruitment Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization. Recruitment also is the processes involved in choosing individua ...

occurs and the previous season's juveniles join the population.Pfister, C. A. (2003)
Some consequences of size variability in juvenile prickly sculpin, ''Cottus asper''.
''Environmental Biology of Fishes'' 66 383-90. While it is native to many waterways in California, it represents an introduced species in some Southern California lakes, rivers, and tributaries, such as the Santa Clara River, the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, before cutting throug ...

Irvine Lake Irvine Lake is a reservoir in Orange County, California, United States. It is on Santiago Creek, located in Silverado, California, east of the city of Irvine and close to Irvine Regional Park. The reservoir is currently operated by the Serr ...

, and

Big Bear Lake Big Bear Lake is a reservoir in the San Bernardino Mountains, in San Bernardino County, California, United States. It is a snow and rain fed lake, having no other means of tributaries or mechanical replenishment. At a surface elevation of , it ...

. It occurs in reservoirs such as Pyramid Lake. It was likely introduced to many of these places from farther north via the

California Aqueduct The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after Cali ...

Uses

The fish is said to be edible by humans, at least the larger individuals. It also makes a good bait fish.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1094288 Cottus (fish) Fish described in 1836