Center for Coastal Resources Management

If you guessed oyster toadfish Opsanus tau (Linnaeus, 1766), you would be correct!

This Bay bottom dweller likes structures, wrecks, or oyster reefs and moves into deeper waters in winter. The male calls the female with it's loud boat-whistle call, builds the nest, keeps it clean with its fins, and guards the young for a few weeks after they hatch.

Interesting Facts

• Has no commercial value but is edible

• Can survive out of water for long periods

• They have even been instrumental in a Woods Hole and NASA shuttle experiment and play an important role in medical research

• Wood's Hole Marine Biological Laboratory's first library director, Cornelia Clapp, gave toadfish its taxonomic name Opsanus tau, due to the vestibular canal's shape being similar to the greek letter tau(t)

A recording of the oyster toadfish's signature boat-whistle call (From University of Rhode Island, Discovery of Sound in the Sea.)

References:

• VIMS Fish of the Month

• Chesapeake Bay Program: Oyster Toadfish

• Biological Discovery in Woods Hole

• Science Daily

• URI Discovery of Sound in the Sea