repares a nest cavity for the female to lay her eggs; when the female lays her eggs she deposits them in clusters on the underside of the nest that the male has prepared for her. The saltwater female sculpin chases a male until she traps him in a crevice. She keeps him there until she lays her eggs. A mature male then fertilizes the eggs. A mature scalyhead sculpin has a well-developed, penis-like appendage that it uses to fertilize the female internally. Sculpin eggs are often brightly colored-green, blue, yellow, orange, pink, red – perhaps to warn off predators. This is a form of protective coloration among many species, which use bright colors to warn predators of danger. The number of eggs that are found in the ovary are 336-5,652 and 700-4,000 per cluster (Krejsa 1967); 584-10,980 eggs in ovary (Bond 1963), [On-line]; 280-7,410 eggs in ovary (Patten 1971), [On-line]; 1,094-5,656 (Millikan 1968), [On-line]. Several females may lay their eggs in one males nest. The female may also lay eggs in more that one males nest. After the eggs are laid the male goes into the nest and fertilizes the eggs immediately . The male fish guards the nest three to four weeks or until the fry leave. He aerates the eggs by fanning them with his large pectoral fins until hatching occurs (Krejsa 1967), [On-line]. The reason the male fans the eggs is to keeps the eggs clean from bacteria and to keep oxygen flowing to eggs. The male also removes debris and dead eggs with his mouth from his nest. The father is so attentive, he may net even feed until the eggs hatch. Eggs adhere strongly to one another, but less to other substrates. Incubation is relatively long: 15-16 days at 12 C (Krejsa 1967), 19-20 days at 10-12 C (Mason and Machidori 1976), [On-line] and 14-15 days at nine to 13 C under laboratory conditions. Millikan (1968) noted that hatching rate of prickly sculpin eggs is higher at a salinity of 12 ppt than in fresh water.A Ne...
