Deepwater sculpin, Myoxocephalus thompsoni (Girard) from a Pleistocene nodule, Green Creek, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

A nodule containing the cranium of a deepwater sculpin, Myoxocephalus thompsoni (Girard), was discovered in Pleistocene Champlain Sea deposits at Green Creek, 10 km east of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and represents the first fossil reported for the species. It provides an additional basis for refuting derivation of the species from a post-Wisconsin marine submergence and suggests an origin at the beginning of the Wisconsin or earlier. Habitat preferences of the species favour an oligotrophic lacustrine environment with bottom summer temperatures below 8 °C in the Champlain Sea or nearby lake basin. The head length of the fossil is 28 mm, the estimated standard length 86 mm. Use of a longwave ultraviolet lamp with the fossil improved contrast between the bones and the clay matrix in photographs. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of bone in the fossil failed to detect the presence of strontium.