Structured profiles of the species that build, inhabit and depend on kelp forests — from giant kelp to sea otters, urchins to weedy seadragons.
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Stalked jellyfish are thumbnail-sized staurozoans that grip kelp fronds with a sticky foot and never swim. A guide to finding these hidden kelp forest gems.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Black tegula (Tegula funebralis) rules the high tide line of the Pacific coast — a decades-lived black turban snail whose grazing shapes kelp recruitment.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
How to identify the rainbow surfperch: pattern by pattern, season by season — and where to find this coral-coloured fish among the kelp beds and wharves.
Tom Okafor ·
Pacific herring turn quiet kelp beds into a silver-and-turquoise spectacle each year. Learn how kelp forests host the spawn that feeds a coast.
Tom Okafor ·
The sailfin sculpin is a banded-eye, flag-finned reef fish of the North Pacific — famous for the courtship wave of its tall sail-like first dorsal fin.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Northern elephant seals dive farther than almost any mammal and came back from near-extinction. Learn their biology, haul-outs and recovery story.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Graceful crab species profile: the slim Metacarcinus gracilis of eelgrass, bays and kelp edges — how to tell it from a small Dungeness, and its estuary role.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The crevice kelpfish can turn from red to brown to match the algae it hides in. Meet the small, coiled shape-shifter living inside the kelp forest's foundations.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
The mosshead warbonnet is a moss-fringed, eel-like prickleback of North Pacific reefs — a shy, hole-loving specialist of kelp-bed cracks and crevices.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the penpoint gunnel — an eel-shaped Pacific shore fish that changes colour with its seaweed and guards eggs in a ball under the rocks.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Helmet crab species profile: the saw-edged, bristled Telmessus cheiragonus — a night-roaming burrower of kelp coast sand from Alaska to Japan.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Learn to identify the pelagic cormorant (Urile pelagicus), the smallest North Pacific cormorant, and how it hunts small fish along kelp forest edges.
Tom Okafor ·
The scalyhead sculpin is a tassel-headed, fully scaled cottid of Pacific kelp beds — a small ambush hunter whose males turn crimson over guarded egg masses.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sea star wasting disease erased billions of sunflower stars in a few years and reshaped whole kelp coasts. Here is what happened — and why hope is returning.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The whitespotted greenling is the North Pacific's chameleon reef fish — a male in red camouflage, a female in grey speckle, and both ferociously territorial.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The brown Irish lord is a spiny, red-bellied sculpin of North Pacific reefs — a camouflaged ambush hunter of crabs and shrimps from Alaska to California.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet Mola mola, the heaviest bony fish on Earth — a flattened, fin-flapping giant that visits kelp coasts to be cleaned, bask and feed on drifting gelata.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the kelp greenling, a shy Pacific reef fish of extraordinary colours — and learn why males turn midnight-dark to guard their egg clutches for weeks.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Brooding anemone species profile: protandric hermaphrodite, live-bearing parent, epiphyte of kelp and eelgrass — and a dispersal puzzle solved by rafting.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Turkish towel species profile: the rough-textured red alga of surf-swept Pacific rocks, its carrageenan chemistry, life cycle and kelp-forest role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the California scorpionfish — a venomous, camouflaged ambush predator of southern kelp reefs. How to identify it, where it hides, and why its sting deserves respect.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The greenbone — also called butterfish — is New Zealand's own kelp grazer, a beak-toothed odacid that changes sex, varies in colour, and moves kelp energy into fish.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A species profile of the yellowtail rockfish — the wide-ranging midwater schooler of Pacific rocky reefs, its life history, fishery, and how to tell it from its cousins.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The striped trumpeter is Tasmania's celebrated hand-line fish — a kelp-reef juvenile, a deep-reef adult, and a lesson in how long-lived fish repay patience.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·