Bear Lake sculpin
A small bottom fish of Bear Lake whose young move up and down the water column daily.
The Bear Lake sculpin is one of four fish Utah DWR lists as found nowhere else in the world, all in Bear Lake. USU scientists studying the species found that young fish feed on bottom invertebrates by day and rely heavily on vision, feeding best at about the light level found on the lake bottom.
A 1988 study in Nature found that sculpin feed on the lake bed in the day, then move up at night into water about 10 degrees Celsius warmer. The warmth sped digestion and let them feed and grow about three times faster than if they stayed in the cold deep water.
Natural range and occurrence are not the same thing. A USGS record shows Bear Lake sculpin stocked as forage in Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming, and the same record lists the fish as established there. So "found nowhere else" describes where the fish is native, not every water it now occupies.
How to recognize it
Small fish found on the bottom; not likely to be seen from shore.
Watching and staying safe
Do not move fish between waters.
Places the sources name
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