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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Crassadoma gigantea, the purple-hinged rock scallop, cements itself to rock for life and filters the kelp forest's currents behind a bright orange mantle. ID and ecology.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The purple shore crab is the little purple scavenger under nearly every rock on Pacific rocky shores — a key cleaner linking the kelp forest to the tide line.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The quillback rockfish is a long-lived, deep-bodied resident of Pacific kelp reefs — orange-freckled, fiercely site-loyal and one of the slowest fish to grow old.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The rainbow seaperch is the most colourful fish in California kelp — a live-bearing surfperch in red, blue and gold that gives birth to fully formed young.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Rainbow star (Orthasterias koehleri): a red-and-orange sea star of Pacific kelp reefs that eats snails, clams and even small sea urchins.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Red Irish lords are mottled, spiny, glued-to-the-rock sculpins that vanish against red algae and barnacles — a masterclass in benthic camouflage.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Red octopus dens stitch a kelp reef together: midden maps, den real estate, Jervis Bay octopus cities and the reef's patchwork of night hunters.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Cancer productus owns the rocky shallows of the Pacific coast: crushing claws, black-tipped pincers, and a quiet role policing urchins. ID, biology, fishery.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The red sponge dorid (Rostanga pulchra) lives, feeds and hides on one red sponge — a thumbprint-size lesson in camouflage every tidepooler can find.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The red turban snail (Chlorostoma funebralis) grazes the kelp forest's turf night and day — and when its numbers swing, whole reefs can tilt. A species profile.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The rhinoceros auklet: the puffin's burrowing cousin with a bill 'horn', night-time colony returns, and fish-laden commutes over kelp-rich shelf water.
Tom Okafor ·
Long brown streamers on the surf-struck low shore: how to identify ribbon kelp, follow its fierce seasonal cycle, and place it among its edible kin.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The rock wrasse (Halichoeres semicinctus) changes sex, colour and career over one lifetime on Southern California's kelp reefs – a full species profile.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Rosy rockfish (Sebastes rosaceus) is a small, pink-blotched rockfish of low rocky reefs from Washington to Baja. Identification, habitat, diet and ecology.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Rubberlip seaperch (Rhacochilus toxotes) species profile: the largest surfperch, with fleshy lips for picking invertebrates off rocks at the kelp forest edge.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the saddleback gunnel — the saddle-marked, eel-shaped shore fish of Pacific kelp edges, and how to tell it from true eels and its gunnel relatives.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Pollachius virens grows up inside the kelp and hunts beyond it — the dark gadoid whose juveniles fill northeast Atlantic kelp forests every autumn.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Eccentric sand dollars crowd the sand beside Pacific kelp forests by the thousand — standing on edge to filter the water. Their biology, beds and neighbours.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
It lives in a shell, it fights with its mouth, and it never backs down. Inside the famous gape-wrestling world of the sarcastic fringehead.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sargassum horneri arrived in California in the 2000s and spread fast. Profile of the invasive 'devil weed', its ecology, impacts and control.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The scaled worm snail (Thylacodes squamigerus) glues its shell to rock, spins a mucus net for food, and grows into living reefs on kelp-bed boulders.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sea bamboo is the towering hollow-stemmed kelp of South Africa's cold west coast. Biology, range, ecology and harvest of Ecklonia maxima, the Cape's forest builder.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sea cabbage (Hedophyllum sessile) is a tough, leathery kelp of the wave-washed low intertidal. Its biology, range, ecology and how to identify it on the shore.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The sea lemon Peltodoris nobilis is a fist-sized, lemon-scented nudibranch that grazes sponges on Pacific kelp reefs. Identification, biology and ecology.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·