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- Purple marsh crabs are significantly disrupting carbon cycling in salt marshes along the East Coast of the U.S., according to a study led by Batten School & VIMS scientists.
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- As an expression of parental pride in their daughter, Taylor Spencer ‘83 and Martha Spencer recently established an undergraduate field research endowment at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
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Sheepshead

Archosargus probatocephalus

Information and species illustrations courtesy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Species Information
Size Maximum to 91 cm, commonly to 35 cm; world game record 9.63 kg.
Diagnostic characters
Habitat, biology, and fisheries Inhabits inshore, rocky, and hard-substrate areas; freely enters brackish water. Feeds primarily on sessile invertebrates such as bryozoans, molluscs, barnacles, and crustaceans. Caught mainly with bottom longlines and trawls; prominent in the catch of anglers. An excellent food fish; usually marketed fresh. The catch reported from Area 31 totaled 1 501 t in 2000.
Distribution Nova Scotia to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico; absent from the West Indies; a few scattered reports from Honduras to Rio de Janeiro.
Citations Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 1: Introduction, molluscs, crustaceans, hagfishes, sharks, batoid fishes, and chimaeras. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1-600. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae). FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 601-1374. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 3: Bony fishes part 2 (Opistognathidae to Molidae), sea turtles and marine mammals. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1375-2127.