Range and Behavior
The spot croaker is most commonly found between the Chesapeake Bay and South Carolina. It is also found along the Atlantic coast of the US, the Florida Keys, and the Gulf of Mexico, but in smaller populations. They inhabit costal areas, no deeper than 60 m. This appears to be due to the tendency of Spot croakers to ascend in response to higher salinity concentrations which would be experienced in the lower depths. During the summer months, spot croakers inhabit shallower bays and estuaries and move out into the costal waters during the winter months as the temperature drops; the northern populations also migrate south for the winter until the water warms up again.
Spot croakers are bottom feeders, and their diets consist of worms, mollusks,small crustaceans, and detritus. As they grow, the size of their prey increases. Predators of the spot croaker include striped bass, weakfish, summer flounder, bluefish, and various species of sharks.
Read more about this topic: Spot Croaker
Famous quotes containing the words range and, range and/or behavior:
“They didn’t know
how
my heart woke
to a range and measure
of song
I hadn’t known.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The psychological umbilical cord is more difficult to cut than the real one. We experience our children as extensions of ourselves, and we feel as though their behavior is an expression of something within us...instead of an expression of something in them. We see in our children our own reflection, and when we don’t like what we see, we feel angry at the reflection.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)