heard
from my Fish and Game biologist friends:
Ed wrote:
what
is this thing? I'm saying it's some kind of egg case, (mermaid's purse)
but from what I don't know. some kind of shark, skate, ray, dogfish...........who
up here, doesn't bare their young live? a diver I had come over from Germany
found it last weekend by the wreck off Fox. Is. in Resurrection Bay. the item
above the thing is a can of WD-40 to give you perspective of size. email me at work,
if you know. I'll be there for the next week.
Bill
wrote:
This is a skate egg case (yes, skates make eggs). The
book Pacific Fishes of Canada has a pretty good key to identify the egg cases
by species. The Fishes of Alaska book also has some descriptions and
drawings. Judging by the size in your picture, it is probably from the
big skate. We get a lot of skate egg cases in our trawl surveys and if
they are still full, you can cut them open and see either the eggs or embryos
inside. On our survey in Kachemak Bay a few weeks ago, I cut one opened
and found 4 eggs; fairly new with white yolks and little development. A
few years ago I found a case with about 6 almost developed skates inside.
They looked like miniatures of the real thing with just a little button of a
yolk sac left..Pretty Neat!
