The beach is a great place for a nice walk and it is an Eldorado for the beachcomber. You will always find something; if it is not wood, it is Tjipetir tiles of rubber or fossil resin in the form of amber, otherwise it is an animal such as the lumpfish. By the way, this is a special animal with a special name that can decorate itself festively during spawning and can wear tropical colors. They regularly wash up on the beaches of the Wadden Islands: licks.
Ameland
Rarely does a beach walker find one lumpfish on the beach of Ameland. The find as on February 17, 2013 is something special. On that day the remains of the fish lie on the beach: only the skin is left, the rest is gone. What lies on the tide line is a tough scaly fish skin. On the same day a dead specimen washes up on Vlieland. The species is common along the Dutch coast, but is an exception on the beach.
Snotolf
A lumpfish is a special fish. The adults have a suction cup at the bottom of the abdomen, with which they can suck themselves on the seabed. The fish can grow up to half a meter long and weigh five kilos. They live on snails and zooplankton that they find between stones and seaweed.
Appearance of the shit sucker
The lumpfish is a fish with a round body, a blunt head and a small tail. It gives the animal a clumsy appearance. He also has small eyes and a large beak with thick lips, so the animal does not look happy. The suction cup on the belly doesn’t make him any prettier either and his image is one of a grumpy piece of fish. His nickname doesn’t make it much better: he is shit eater mentioned. However, the appearance of the fish does not correspond to the nature of the creature.
Caring
The females are blue-green in color, the males purple, red and yellow. During the spawning season, the colors become even more festive. The males lumpfish usually grow slightly smaller than the females. The females can grow up to half a meter long, the males stay stuck at 30 centimeters. The males make themselves beautiful during the spawning season, between February and May, when they are colored luminous orange-purple. The lumpfish makes an octagonal nest, which is guarded by the male. His wife lays as many as 200,000 eggs in the tidal area at exactly the place where they are just submerged during low tide. To add some oxygen to the thin layer of water, father lumpfish fans some movement in the water with which oxygen-rich water is supplied with his fins. He acts like a caring father and makes sure the eggs are not deprived of oxygen. The small lumpfish are fresh green mini balls. The fish live to be 10 to 13 years old.
Stone
Snotolves live a lot on the bottom, except during the spawning season. Then they migrate to shallower waters with tidal currents. They like running water and a stony surface. They can suck on it nicely. Yet the fish are also observed in the sandy North Sea. Their habitat extends from the coastal waters along Norway, England, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and Canada, the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. They even occur around the North Cape.
Lumpsucker
There are many names for the lumpfish:
- England: lumpsucker (lump sucker);
- England: seahen (sea chicken);
- Germany: Seehase (sea hare);
- Netherlands: Shit Dredger.
Lumps
The convex body of the lumpfish is decorated with seven bony strips separated by rows of cusps. The skin is scaly leathery and covered with a layer of mucus, the snot from which the fish gets its name. A copepoot crab loves that and that animal attaches itself to the skin of the lumpfish. The fish doesn’t like that, but the lobster stays close to the delicacy.
Enemies
In general, the lumpfish stays nice and still and that makes it easy prey.
Enemies of the lumpfish are:
- Fishermen;
- seals;
- big sharks;
- sperm whales;
- sea otters;
- large halibut;
- anglerfish.
Beach find
The power of the suction cup is enormous. Nevertheless, the fish sometimes come loose during a heavy storm and then they wash up on the beach. Usually these are the males, because they breed in the tidal area. Adult females wash up much less often, but they too are at risk. This is because fishing is done in deeper water. The fishermen are crazy about the roe, which is offered in brine and with black coloring as fake caviar. As for the fish itself, the male is more delicious than the female.