Abstract:Lophius litulon is an important benthic fish species which distributes in the northwest Pacific. From May 2008 to February 2009, a total of 663 L. litulon samples at body lengths of 45 ~ 650 mm were collected from the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. Based on the stomach content analysis, feeding habits and ontogenetic variation of L. litulon were investigated by chi-squared test, one-way ANOVA test, and cluster analysis. More than 120 species of prey were ingested by L. litulon. Osteichthyes and Natantia were the major important prey groups. At species level, the dominant preys were Pseudosciaena polyactis,Champsodon capensis, Apogonichthys lineatus, Acropoma japonicum, and Trichiurus haumela.No significant difference was found for feeding intensity between different regions or different size-groups, but the diet composition was significantly different among three regions in ingestion of Osteichthyes and Natantia, and significant ontogenetic differences among the ingestion of Crangon affinis, Palaemon gravieri, A. japonicum, P. polyactis, and T. haumela. Cluster analysis on ontogenetic variation revealed two major groups, one group consisting of L.litulon at body lengths shorter than 250 mm, the other group at BL longer than 250 mm. The food diversity index, diet composition, and food weight of prey species varied with the increasing of body length. Thus, it can be concluded that ontogenetic diet composition variation follows the “optimal foraging theory”.
