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Encyclopedia · Group

Fishes

Between canopy and floor lives the fish guild: garibaldi guarding algal gardens in California, weed-like seadragons drifting the southern Australian kelp, sheephead crunching urchins, rockfish schooling at the fronds, and ancient sevengill sharks commuting through the gloom. Kelp forest fish are creatures of structure — where the forest stands, they are everywhere; where it falls, the mid-water empties with it.

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132 profiles

122 scientific names catalogued

Atlantic wolffish

Anarhichas lupus

The reef’s shell-crusher — a slow predator of urchins and crabs that keeps grazers honest

10 min read · Fishes

Ballan wrasse

Labrus bergylta

Europe’s kelp-rock foreman — nest-builder, sex-changer, shell-crusher and farmed cleaner-fish

9 min read · Fishes

Banded morwong

Cheilodactylus spectabilis

The site-attached elder of the reef — a benthic picker whose long life makes it a sensitive fishing indicator

8 min read · Fishes

Bat ray

Myliobatis californica

A shell-crushing forager whose feeding pits till the seafloor beside the reef

8 min read · Fishes

Big skate

Beringraja binoculata

The flat giant of the sand margin — mother of the biggest mermaid’s purses on the coast

9 min read · Fishes

Black-and-yellow rockfish

Sebastes chrysomelas

The stay-at-home of the kelp bed — a boldly barred rockfish defending its patch of reef for a decade or more

9 min read · Fishes

Black croaker

Cheilotrema saturnum

The kelp bed’s night drummer — a drumming sciaenid that feeds on invertebrates over the reef after dark

8 min read · Fishes

Black-eyed goby

Coryphopterus nicholsii

A hovering plankton-picker that holds station over the kelp floor in loose schools

8 min read · Fishes

Black rockfish

Sebastes melanops

The schooling shadow over the canopy — a midwater hunter of krill and baitfish above the reef

7 min read · Fishes

Black surfperch

Embiotoca jacksoni

The kelp bed’s plodding picnicker — a live-bearing browser that picks small life from the fronds

7 min read · Fishes

Black-and-yellow rockfish

Sebastes chrysomelas

The jewel of the shallow rocks — a bold-patterned ambush predator that rarely leaves home

7 min read · Fishes

Blackeye goby

Rhinogobiops nicholsii

The drifting guard posts of the kelp bed — plankton catchers whose density reads as reef health

7 min read · Fishes

Blacksmith

Chromis punctipinnis

The charcoal damselfish whose dense schools crop the canopy’s passing plankton

8 min read · Fishes

Brown rockfish

Sebastes auriculatus

The shallowest of the rockfish — a dusky, harbour-tolerant homebody of kelp country

7 min read · Fishes

Butterfish (rock gunnel)

Pholis gunnellus

A sneaky, eel-like shore fish wearing a necklace of eyespots down its back

8 min read · Fishes

Cabezon

Scorpaenichthys marmoratus

The grumpy egg-guarding ambusher of the reef floor

8 min read · Fishes

A California flying fish glides just above a calm dawn sea with both pairs of dark wing-like fins spread, a faint spray trail behind its tail, a kelp-covered headland on the horizon.

California flying fish

Cheilopogon pinnatibarbatus californicus

A warm-season glider whose comings and goings read like a calendar of the kelp coast

9 min read · Fishes

California halibut

Paralichthys californicus

An ambush flatfish rising off the sand to take anchovies and smelt

9 min read · Fishes

A bright orange canary rockfish hovering above a dark rocky reef in deep blue-green Pacific water, sunbeams falling from the surface

Canary rockfish

Sebastes pinniger

A long-lived deep-reef rockfish whose crash and rebuild became the west coast’s model fisheries story

9 min read · Fishes

China rockfish

Sebastes nebulosus

A crevice-hugging rockfish that keeps its life local — a long-lived measure of reef quality

8 min read · Fishes

Copper rockfish

Sebastes caurinus

A long-lived reef resident that needs structure — kelp — to hide and hunt

8 min read · Fishes

Corkwing wrasse

Symphodus melops

Nest-building cleanerfish of Europe’s kelp — now fished at scale for salmon farms

9 min read · Fishes

Giant kelpfish

Heterostichus rostratus

The shape-shifting ambusher — shifting reds, browns and greens to vanish against the fronds it hunts from

7 min read · Fishes

Goldsinny wrasse

Ctenolabrus rupestris

The Atlantic kelp bed’s most abundant small wrasse — parasite cleaner and salmon-farm conscript

8 min read · Fishes

Gopher rockfish

Sebastes carnatus

The quiet reef homebody — a long-lived ambusher ageing gently in the kelp bed’s shadows

7 min read · Fishes

Grass rockfish

Sebastes rastrelliger

A stealth hunter of crabs and small fish, woven through the kelp-bed floor

8 min read · Fishes

Great sculpin

Myoxocephalus polyacanthocephalus

The big-headed floor boss of the reef edge, a bottom-hugging ambusher of crabs and small fishes

8 min read · Fishes

Grunt sculpin

Rhamphocottus richardsonii

A walking-finned ambusher that poses as a living barnacle

7 min read · Fishes

A school of slate blue-grey halfmoon fish with crescent tails cruising beneath a golden kelp canopy in sunlit Southern California water.

Halfmoon

Medialuna californiensis

The dusk school — a small-mouthed grazer that filters the kelp edge for bits of everything

8 min read · Fishes

A horn shark resting on a rocky kelp-forest floor at night, lit by a diver's torch, with purple sea urchins nearby

Horn shark

Heterodontus francisci

The kelp bed’s night specialist — crushing urchins until its teeth stain purple

8 min read · Fishes

Kelp greenling

Hexagrammos decagrammus

An ambush predator whose sexes look like different species

8 min read · Fishes

Kelp perch

Brachyistius frenatus

The canopy’s resident browser — a live-bearing surfperch that lives among the fronds themselves

9 min read · Fishes

Kelp rockfish

Sebastes atrovirens

A canopy specialist that lives its life between the blades

7 min read · Fishes

Lumpsucker (lumpfish)

Cyclopterus lumpus

The suction-cup reef clown — and a working cleaner fish in salmon aquaculture

9 min read · Fishes

Marblefish

Aplodactylus arctidens

The odd surgeon of the southern kelp — a true herbivore that crops the forest itself

7 min read · Fishes

Monkeyface prickleback

Cebidichthys violaceus

The rare fish herbivore — grazing seaweed at the water’s edge and breathing the tide out

8 min read · Fishes

Northern anchovy

Engraulis mordax

A plankton-straining forage school that fuels salmon, seabirds and sea lions

9 min read · Fishes

Olive rockfish

Sebastes serranoides

A schooling mid-water hunter threading the kelp canopy

9 min read · Fishes

Opaleye

Girella nigricans

The blue-eyed grazer of the shallow kelp — the fish that eats where the waves break

8 min read · Fishes

Ornate cowfish

Aracana ornata

A benthic sifter of small invertebrates; males wear dazzling blue-and-orange pinstripes

8 min read · Fishes

A school of silvery Pacific barracuda holding station in sunlit green water just off the edge of a towering giant kelp forest, with god rays slanting down through the canopy.

Pacific barracuda

Sphyraena argentea

The kelp edge’s silver pursuit predator, hunting baitfish in loose schools

9 min read · Fishes

Pacific bonito

Sarda chiliensis

The silver comet beyond the canopy — a small tuna whose visits mark warm water on kelp coasts

8 min read · Fishes

Pacific hagfish

Eptatretus stoutii

The deep-sea cleaner of the kelp coast — a slime-weaving scavenger that turns carrion falls back into the system

8 min read · Fishes

Pacific herring

Clupea pallasii

The kelp coast’s keystone forage fish — its spawn can whiten kilometres of shoreline

9 min read · Fishes

Pacific lamprey

Entosphenus tridentatus

A jawless, ancient traveller ferrying ocean nutrients from the kelp coast into headwater rivers

9 min read · Fishes

Pacific sand lance

Ammodytes personatus

The buried forage fish — the linchpin prey that carries the kelp edge’s energy to salmon, seabirds and whales

8 min read · Fishes

Pacific sardine

Sardinops sagax

A boom-and-bust forage river — the silver school behind Cannery Row’s rise and collapse

10 min read · Fishes

Pacific spiny lumpsucker

Eumicrotremus orbis

The roundest resident of the bed — a finless-looking drifter that anchors itself to a leaf and waits

7 min read · Fishes

Painted greenling

Oxylebius pictus

A small perched ambush fish of the reef floor and low canopy

7 min read · Fishes

Pile perch

Rhacochilus vacca

A striped surfperch browsing the mid-water jungle between canopy and pier

7 min read · Fishes

A large golden pot-bellied seahorse with a deep, rounded belly curves among kelp fronds in green subtidal water, natural light filtering down

Pot-bellied seahorse

Hippocampus abdominalis

A holdfast-hitching ambusher of swarming tiny crustaceans

8 min read · Fishes

Quillback rockfish

Sebastes maliger

The patient kelp-reef bass — a solitary, long-lived ambusher loyal to one piece of reef

8 min read · Fishes

A rainbow seaperch in orange-red and blue striping hovers among sunlit kelp fronds.

Rainbow seaperch

Hypsurus caryi

The coral-coloured surfperch of cold water — a live-bearing kelp-forest picker

7 min read · Fishes

Red Irish lord

Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus

A bottom-glued sculpin that waits for almost anything it can engulf

8 min read · Fishes

Rock wrasse

Halichoeres semicinctus

A sex-changing kelp-reef wrasse whose juveniles run cleaner stations

8 min read · Fishes

Rosy rockfish

Sebastes rosaceus

The reef’s quick blush of red — a mid-sized rockfish drifting the kelp margins

8 min read · Fishes

Rubberlip seaperch

Rhacochilus toxotes

A thick-lipped invertebrate-picker working the reef edge in surge

8 min read · Fishes

Saddleback gunnel

Pholis ornata

The eel-lookalike of the kelp fringe, wearing a row of dark saddle blotches down its back

9 min read · Fishes

Saithe (coalfish)

Pollachius virens

The dark gadoid that grows up inside the kelp before joining the open-water hunt

8 min read · Fishes

Sarcastic fringehead

Neoclinus blanchardi

The mouth-first homemaker — gape-wrestling rivals for territory on the reef’s fringe

7 min read · Fishes

Shiner surfperch

Cymatogaster aggregata

The silver cloud in the canopy — a forage fish that carries kelp-bed productivity to bigger mouths

7 min read · Fishes

A shovelnose guitarfish glides over a sand channel between low kelp-forest reef in sunlit green water

Shovelnose guitarfish

Pseudobatos productus

The bottom-grazing flat-rajid of the kelp coast’s sandy lanes

9 min read · Fishes

A bluntnose sixgill shark with pale green eyes cruising at dusk along a steep rock wall, with the dim silhouettes of a kelp forest rising toward faint light behind it

Bluntnose sixgill shark

Hexanchus griseus

The deep giant that visits kelp country — a primitive sixgilled shark on a nightly commute up from the dark

9 min read · Fishes

Soupfin shark (tope)

Galeorhinus galeus

The kelp coast’s ill-fated voyager — once fished near collapse for liver vitamin A

8 min read · Fishes

Speckled sanddab

Citharichthys stigmaeus

A small ambusher of worms and crustaceans, speckled into invisibility against the sand

8 min read · Fishes

A tiny Pacific spiny lumpsucker — a round, cone-studded olive-green fish — clamped by its suction-disc belly to an eelgrass blade, with soft-focus kelp and sunbeams behind

Pacific spiny lumpsucker

Eumicrotremus orbis

A suction-cupped grazer of tiny crustaceans; males guard the egg cluster

7 min read · Fishes

Spotted ratfish

Hydrolagus colliei

The kelp coast’s ghost shark — a living chimaera gliding through on wings of pectoral fin

10 min read · Fishes

Staghorn sculpin

Leptocottus armatus

The antler-spined hunter of tidal creeks — venomous cheek spines, and a staple of herons and larger fish in the soft shallows

8 min read · Fishes

Striped seaperch

Embiotoca lateralis

A live-bearing picker that winnows crustaceans from the understory

9 min read · Fishes

Striped seaperch

Embiotoca lateralis

The neon stripe at the kelp’s edge — a live-bearing browser picking small life from rock and frond

8 min read · Fishes

Swell shark

Cephaloscyllium ventriosum

The inflatable night shark — asleep in the kelp by day, ballooning into a locked wedge when threatened

8 min read · Fishes

Kelp perch

Brachyistius frenatus

A live-bearing surfperch that sips plankton and picks parasites off larger fish

8 min read · Fishes

Treefish

Sebastes serriceps

The reef’s small gold sentinel — guarding crevices and biting anything rude

7 min read · Fishes

Vermilion rockfish

Sebastes miniatus

A long-lived predator holding the reef edge where canopy meets open water

8 min read · Fishes

White seabass

Atractoscion nobilis

The ghost of the kelp forest — a croaker that cruises the fringes after surfperch and squid

10 min read · Fishes

A large orange-red yelloweye rockfish with a bright yellow eye hovering above a sponge-encrusted rocky reef, with the kelp canopy dim overhead

Yelloweye rockfish

Sebastes ruberrimus

The long-lived orange elder of the deep reef — a fish gone for generations wherever it is fished away

9 min read · Fishes

Blue rockfish

Sebastes mystinus

The schooling plankton-picker that makes the canopy shimmer — and a fishery mainstay

8 min read · Fishes

Bluebanded goby

Lythrypnus dalli

A sex-changing micro-predator and the reef’s most dazzling small resident

8 min read · Fishes

Broadnose sevengill shark

Notorynchus cepedianus

An ancient apex cruiser built on a body plan older than most reefs it patrols

9 min read · Fishes

Garibaldi

Hypsypops rubicundus

Territorial gardener of algal nests; California’s protected state marine fish

7 min read · Fishes

Leopard shark

Triakis semifasciata

A harmless invertebrate-hunting houndshark famous for its summer aggregations

8 min read · Fishes

Lingcod

Ophiodon elongatus

Not a cod at all — the kelp reef’s nest-guarding ambush predator (with famously blue flesh)

9 min read · Fishes

Tiger rockfish

Sebastes nigrocinctus

A long-lived banded hermit of the deep reef edge

7 min read · Fishes

Wolf eel

Anarrhichthys ocellatus

Not an eel at all — a devoted, urchin-crushing den-dweller that guards eggs for months

9 min read · Fishes

California moray

Gymnothorax mordax

The reef’s most patient hunter — a crevice ambusher of octopus, fish and crabs

7 min read · Fishes

Coralline sculpin

Artedius corallinus

The invisible gardener of the pink reef — picking small crustaceans from the coralline crusts

7 min read · Fishes

Eastern blue groper

Achoerodus viridis

Charismatic urchin and crab hunter; the fish emblem of New South Wales

8 min read · Fishes

Giant black sea bass — the comeback

Stereolepis gigas

The kelp forest’s giant resident predator, mid-recovery after a fishing-era crash

8 min read · Fishes

Pacific electric ray

Tetronarce californica

A sluggish ambush predator that stuns fast fish with a 50-volt discharge

8 min read · Fishes

Rockweed gunnel

Xererpes fucorum

A crimson fish that vanishes into red weed a shade away

6 min read · Fishes

Spotted kelpfish

Gibbonsia elegans

A shape-shifting clinid whose colour morphs match red, green and brown kelp backgrounds

7 min read · Fishes

A weedy seadragon drifting among golden kelp fronds in sunlit green water off southern Australia

Weedy seadragon

Phyllopteryx taeniolatus

Seahorse relative that vanishes into kelp; males carry the eggs on their tails

7 min read · Fishes

Blue-banded goby

Lythrypnus dalli

A micro-predator of the reef floor that changes sex with its social rank

8 min read · Fishes

Kelp bass

Paralabrax clathratus

Ambush predator of the canopy itself — “calico bass” to generations of anglers

8 min read · Fishes

Kelp snailfish

Liparis mucosus

The storm-proof-basement tenant of the holdfast maze — inconspicuous, essential, everywhere

7 min read · Fishes

Leafy seadragon

Phycodurus eques

Mimicry made flesh — an ambush plankton-hunter disguised as drifting weed

7 min read · Fishes

A masked greenling — olive-brown with dark flank bars and a dark stripe through its eye — perched on a kelp-covered rock in cold green Alaskan shallows.

Masked greenling

Hexagrammos octogrammus

A cold-water ambusher of the northern kelp beds, watching from the rocks

9 min read · Fishes

Reef surfperch

Micrometrus aurora

A small livebearing surfperch working the noisy seam between canopy and surf zone

7 min read · Fishes

A buffalo sculpin rests on a rock ledge in a north Pacific kelp bed, its broad spiny head and mottled camouflage blending with the encrusted reef beneath green-gold kelp fronds.

Buffalo sculpin

Enophrys bison

The horned ambusher of the kelp understory — venom-bearing spines and a mouthful of crab

8 min read · Fishes

California sheephead

Semicossyphus pulcher

Urchin-crunching wrasse — a predator the forest badly wants back

8 min read · Fishes

Northern clingfish

Gobiesox maeandricus

A living suction cup — its fused-fin disc outgrips engineered cups on rough wet rock

7 min read · Fishes

Port Jackson shark

Heterodontus portusjacksoni

Nocturnal urchin-eater whose migratory egg-laying cities dot southern reefs

8 min read · Fishes

Starry flounder

Platichthys stellatus

The flatfish that walks between river and reef, ambushing crabs on the sand

8 min read · Fishes

Giant sea bass

Stereolepis gigas

The kelp forest’s biggest resident predator, returning from the brink

8 min read · Fishes

A giant sea bass hangs motionless in green sunlit water beneath a giant kelp canopy off California, vertical shafts of light falling through the fronds onto its dark, blotched flank.

Giant sea bass

Stereolepis gigas

The gentle giant of the kelp forest — a curious, slow-moving top predator of croakers, lobsters and squid

8 min read · Fishes

Tubesnout

Aulorhynchus flavidus

A canopy-edge forage school that fastens its eggs to kelp stipes

9 min read · Fishes

Woolly sculpin

Clinocottus analis

The tidepool’s endurance champion — an air-breathing sculpin that can sit out of water for hours

7 min read · Fishes

Crescent gunnel

Pholis laeta

A ribbon-thin resident of the kelp fringe, named for the crescent mark above its eye

9 min read · Fishes

Señorita

Oxyjulis californica

The kelp forest’s cleaner wrasse — hygienist by day, sand-sleeper by night

8 min read · Fishes

Plainfin midshipman

Porichthys notatus

The singing toadfish of the kelp coast — males hum all night to court

8 min read · Fishes

A bay pipefish holding vertical among green eelgrass blades in sunlit water, camouflaged to match the swaying vegetation.

Bay pipefish

Syngnathus leptorhynchus

A grass-blade mimic that snipes tiny crustaceans with a snort of suction

9 min read · Fishes

Walleye surfperch

Hyperprosopon argenteum

The silver flash in the kelp surge — a live-bearing perch that feeds at the canopy margin

7 min read · Fishes

High cockscomb

Anoplarchus purpurescens

An intertidal omnivore with devoted fathers — males coil around and guard the eggs

9 min read · Fishes

Rainbow surfperch

Hypsurus caryi

The most colourful surfperch on the coast — bars, dots and stripes at the kelp-bed edge

7 min read · Fishes

Pacific herring

Clupea pallasii

The forage engine that turns plankton into a coast-wide feast — on kelp as a nursery

10 min read · Fishes

Sailfin sculpin

Nautichthys oculofasciatus

A flag-finned sculpin flashing warnings and courtship at the reef edge

8 min read · Fishes

Crevice kelpfish

Gibbonsia montereyensis

The colour-matching ghost of the understory — shifting red, brown or olive to match the weed it hides in

7 min read · Fishes

Mosshead warbonnet

Chirolophis nugator

A crevice-wedging ambusher of small crustaceans, dressed in camouflage fronds

8 min read · Fishes

Penpoint gunnel

Apodichthys flavidus

A weed-matched eel-lookalike that can weather hours out of water

11 min read · Fishes

Scalyhead sculpin

Artedius harringtoni

A small cryptic sculpin whose “headwear” breaks up its outline against the reef

8 min read · Fishes

Whitespotted greenling

Hexagrammos stelleri

A changeable ambusher of the rocky reef, in two distinct colour coats

12 min read · Fishes

Brown Irish lord

Hemilepidotus spinosus

A cold-water sculpin picking small crustaceans and fish off the reef

8 min read · Fishes

Ocean sunfish

Mola mola

A gelatinous-zooplankton hunter that visits kelp reefs for cleaning services

9 min read · Fishes

Kelp greenling, the egg guardian

Hexagrammos decagrammus

A deep-dive look at the greenling’s double life — and the fathers who guard the eggs

9 min read · Fishes

California scorpionfish

Scorpaena guttata

The venomous stone in the kelp’s shadow — an ambush predator that rewards slow eyes

8 min read · Fishes

Greenbone (butterfish)

Odax pullus

New Zealand’s kelp-shearing herbivore — a grazer whose feeding keeps algal turf in check

7 min read · Fishes

Yellowtail rockfish

Sebastes flavidus

The nomad school at the kelp edge — a roaming plankton eater that links the open ocean to the reef

8 min read · Fishes

Striped trumpeter

Latris lineata

Tasmania’s deep-reef druid — a long-lived kelp-edge fish beloved of the craypot fishery

8 min read · Fishes

Herring cale

Odax cyanomelas

A true kelp-eater of the Great Southern Reef — one of the few fish that digests the canopy directly

7 min read · Fishes

Tidepool sculpin

Oligocottus maculosus

A tidepool survivor built for heat, salt spikes and hours of air

8 min read · Fishes

A large deep-blue western blue groper patrolling beside a kelp-draped granite ledge in green Australian water, sunbeams filtering through the canopy.

Western blue groper

Achoerodus gouldii

The south-west’s blue emperor — a slow, decades-old kelp reef matriarch-patriarch of the reef

8 min read · Fishes

Pacific angel shark

Squatina californica

A flat-bodied ambusher hidden in sand at the kelp edge

8 min read · Fishes

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