Document Type

Article

Department/Program

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Publication Date

1982

Journal

Bulletin of Marine Science

Volume

32

Issue

2

First Page

448

Last Page

454

Abstract

Gray tilefish, Cau/o/atilus microps, were collected from 1972 to 1977 between depths of 70 to 236 m off North Carolina and South Carolina, Gray tilefish are demersal, opportunistic predators that consume fishes and macroinvertebrates closely associated with the substrate, The principal components of their diets, in decreasing order of importance, are: crabs, shrimp, fish, echinoderms (holothurians, echinoids, stelleroids), polychaetes, ascideans, molluscs (gastropods and bivalves), stomatopods and sipunculids. As tilefish grow, they consume larger prey. Their generalized feeding is similar to other branchiostegids. This strategy is advantageous for predation on the faunal assemblages of the shelf-edge habitat where the species diversity is generally high, but the number of individuals/species is generally low,

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