Scavenging interactions between the arrow tooth eel Synaphobranchus kaupii and the Portuguese dogfish Centroscymnus coelolepis.

ABSTRACT

A scavenging interaction between the arrow tooth eel Synaphobranchus kaupii and the Portuguese dogfish Centroscymnus coelolepis, both ubiquitous components of fish assemblages at bathyal depths, was observed. Using a baited camera between 1297 and 2453 m in the eastern Atlantic Ocean continental slope, it was shown that despite consistently rapid arrival times of S. kaupii (<5 min), their feeding bouts (indicated by acute peak in numbers) did not take place until shortly after C. coelolepis arrived and removed the exterior surface of the bait (skipjack tuna Katsuwonus pelamis carcass). Change in the numbers of S. kaupii was hence dependent on the arrival of a more powerful scavenger throughout the study site, and at the deeper stations where the population of C. coelolepis declined, S. kaupii was observed to be present but waited for >2 h before feeding, thus contradicting conventional scavenging assumptions in the presence of a food fall.