Habitat Characteristics of the Pacific Hagfish, <i>Polistotrema stouti</i>

Abstract

Environmental information from Mayne Bay on Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island, indicates that the Pacific hagfish, Polistotrema stouti (Lockington), occurs on substrates consisting mainly of silt and in water characterized by high near-bottom salinities (31–32‰) but low surface salinities (24‰) into which they occasionally swim. Near-bottom dissolved oxygen concentrations were low, an observation in harmony with the high oxygen affinity of hagfish hemoglobin.