Ryan Dail - Project Update

Time seems to be flying by this semester, as our presentation day is right around the corner I started to think about questions I might get asked. One question I thought to myself was how might scientists learn the age of a fish if the otolith is not retrievable? When I did my field work with the fishery biologist from NOAA we took the length of each fish and recorded the data on a specific chart.

Greater Amberjack
38 in. and about 28 lbs
roughly 2-3 years old

 For example, a red drum will reach the length of about 27 in 4 years. So if you were to find a red drum that is around 27 inches you could say it is roughly 3-4 years old. To get a more accurate age of a fish without the using the otoliths scientists use scale samples and in some cases they can tell by the sex of the fish, being that some fish can actually change their sex at a certain maturity. Next week I plan on making a list of questions I have received and really getting to know the answers to them.