Screen shot of Frying Pan Tower’s shallow webcam.
Q.There are several underwater webcams at the Frying Pan Light Tower. What kind of fish are the thousands of small silver bait fish?
A. You can view the remarkable webcams at www.wect.com/category/289906/frying-pan-tower-cameras
Dr. Tom Lankford, associate professor in the department of biology and marine biology at UNCW, said the small silvery fish in the videos are called scads. Scads are members of the jack family.
“They are very common in our area and often associate with artificial reefs, where they find food and shelter from their predators,” he said in an email. “Scads are very popular baitfish used by fishermen to catch groupers, snappers and other reef fishes. Fishermen refer to them as ‘cigar minnows’ due to their shape.”
Learn more about Frying Pan Tower at www.fptower.com.
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Date posted: May 21, 2015
User-contributed question by:
William Roy
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