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Table 43. Habitat associations of other, less commonly eaten
invertebrate prey in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary, based primarily on Caracciolo
and Steimle (1983). (Scientific and common names follow Turgeon et
al. (1998) and Williams et al. (1989).) |
Taxa (scientific name) |
Habitat |
Common Name and Comments |
Algae (green, red, brown) |
Attached and loose |
Ulva-type fragments, branches usually found |
Hydrozoans (unidentified spp.) |
Hard surfaces |
"Sea hair," incidentally eaten |
Nemerteans (unidentified sp.) |
Soft sediments, among mussels |
Ribbon or "tapeworm" |
Mollusca |
Gastropoda |
Crepidula fornicata |
Hard surfaces, marine |
Common Atlantic slippersnail, only juveniles usually eaten |
Bivalvia |
Nucula sp. |
Silty sediments |
Nut clam, tiny |
Mytilus edulis |
Hard surfaces and open bottom |
Blue mussel, spat often within hydroids |
Mulinia lateralis |
Fine-medium estuarine sands |
Dwarf surfclam |
Tellina agilis |
Silty to medium marine sands |
Northern dwarf-tellin |
Ensis directus |
Fine-coarse sands |
Atlantic jacknife or razor clam, siphons or eaten whole |
Mya arenaria |
Soft mud-fine sands |
Softshell, usually only siphons nipped |
Cephalopoda |
Unidentified squid (Loligo?) |
Nektonic |
Fragments only found |
Annelida |
Polychaeta |
Glycera sp. |
Soft to medium sands |
"Blood worms" |
Nephtys sp. |
Silty to fine sands |
"Painted worms" |
Nereis sp. |
Silty to medium sands |
"Clam worms," swarms to surface at times |
Asabellides oculata |
Silty sands |
Rapid colonizer, "spaghetti worm" |
Pherusa affinis |
Marine silty sands to mud |
Tube dweller |
Arthropoda |
Crustacea |
Copepoda |
Pseudodiaptomus coronatus |
Near bottom |
Bright orange color |
Isopoda |
Cyathura sp. |
Less saline, silty areas |
Tube dweller |
Edotea sp. |
Silty sediments |
Common in detritus |
Amphipoda |
Corophium tuberculatum |
Silty sands |
Tube dweller |
Ericthonius sp. |
Silty sands |
Tube dweller |
Unciola sp. |
Various sands |
Tube dweller |
Decapoda |
Dichelopandalus leptocerus |
Nektonic |
Bristled longbeak or bristlebeak shrimp |
Palaemonetes sp. |
In and near salt marshes |
Grass shrimp (mostly P. vulgaris, the marsh grass
shrimp) |
Callinectes sapidus |
Estuarine, mud to sand, vegetation |
Blue crab, eaten at smaller sizes |
Xanthid crabs |
Mud and shellfish beds |
Mud crabs (mostly Dyspanopeus sayi, the Say mud crab) |
Stomatopoda |
Squilla empusa |
Burrows in sediments |
Mantis shrimp |