Structured profiles of the species that build, inhabit and depend on kelp forests — from giant kelp to sea otters, urchins to weedy seadragons.
322 articles · Browse the structured Encyclopedia →
Gracilaria sea mosses are among the most farmed seaweeds on Earth and the classic source of agar. Profile of their ecology, culture and cuisine.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Olive rockfish (Sebastes serranoides) school in the dim water above Pacific kelp beds. Profile: ID tips vs kelp rockfish, life history, fishery and role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The opalescent nudibranch steals stinging cells from its anemone prey and wields them as weapons. Learn to identify Hermissenda crassicornis and its world.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The opaleye is a herbivorous sea chub with opal-blue eyes that shapes California's shallow reefs from tidepools to kelp edges. Biology, diet and ecology.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The orange sea pen is a quill-shaped coral colony of the sandy seafloor that retracts into the sediment when touched — and glows when disturbed.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The ornate cowfish (Aracana ornata) carries blue-and-gold armour through southern Australia's kelp and seagrass. A profile of the reef's small Picasso.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the ostrich plume hydroid, the feathery stinging colony that covers kelp stipes — hundreds of polyps living as one animal, hunted by mites and sea slugs.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Lottia gigantea, the owl limpet, farms a private algae garden on Pacific rocks and bulldozes rivals off it. Biology, territory defence and status.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The Pacific barracuda (Sphyraena argentea) hunts in silver schools over California kelp beds. Profile: biology, range, fishery and how it differs from its tropical cousin.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Pacific bonito turn the water beyond the kelp to chrome in warm years. Identification, behaviour, the El Niño connection, and where divers meet these speedsters.
Tom Okafor ·
The Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii) is a jawless, knot-tying deep-sea scavenger whose legendary slime and midnight carcass work keep the seafloor clean.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii): the life cycle behind the spawn that whitens beaches, the predators it feeds, and why kelp beds still matter.
Tom Okafor ·
Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) is a 450-million-year-old jawless fish that spends years as a filter-feeding larva, hunts the ocean, then returns home.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Profile of the Pacific sand lance: a pencil-thin forage fish that buries itself in sand beside the kelp forest and feeds seabirds, salmon and whales. Facts and ecology.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Pacific sardine: the ecology of Sardinops sagax, its great twentieth-century collapse and recovery, and why this small fish feeds the whole kelp coast.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
How to identify a Pacific spiny lumpsucker: field marks, lookalikes, the suction disc, and where to actually find this walnut-sized kelp bed fish.
Tom Okafor ·
Banded like a convict, tusked in miniature, and perched on the rock: how to find and identify the painted greenling of North Pacific kelp beds.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The painted topshell is a glossy, conical grazer of Europe's kelp-bed reefs. How to identify Calliostoma zizyphinum, where it lives and how it feeds.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The pile perch (Rhacochilus vacca) is the big, deep-bodied seaperch of Pacific kelp forests and pilings — live-bearing, hard-shelled-prey crusher, diver favourite.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Pink abalone built Baja California's most storied shellfish fishery, then nearly vanished with the kelp. Inside the cooperative-led fight to bring them back.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the giant pink sea star — a two-foot, sand-plowing predator of clams and sand dollars that patrols the soft floors between Pacific kelp forests.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Hunted to near-collapse, the pinto abalone is being rebuilt by hatcheries and divers in the Salish Sea. Inside North America's meticulous abalone comeback.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Plumose anemones turn cold kelp-coast rock, wrecks and pilings into white forests of feathery tentacles. Meet Metridium, the towering filter feeder.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Hippocampus abdominalis, the pot-bellied seahorse, is one of the world's largest seahorses — a slow, golden giant of Australian and New Zealand kelp gardens.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·