35 articles
The black-and-yellow rockfish holds one crevice for years and defends it with venom-tipped spines — a lesson in how site-attached reef fish live and recover.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
Black rockfish: the dark, schooling Sebastes of northeast Pacific kelp edges — identification vs blue rockfish, life history, fishery and conservation.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The black-and-yellow rockfish is one of the most boldly patterned fish of California's shallow kelp reefs — dark as kelp shadow, patched with shout-yellow.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The brown rockfish is the shallowest of the Pacific rockfish — a dusky, bay-loving homebody of kelp beds, pier piles and eelgrass edges from Alaska to Baja.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Pholis gunnellus lives in kelp holdfasts and under tidepool stones, can cross wet rock between pools, and carries a necklace of eyespots down its back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The cabezon Scorpaenichthys marmoratus is the largest sculpin on the Pacific coast — an egg-guarding ambush predator of kelp reefs with famously toxic roe.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The gopher rockfish is a mottled, hole-dwelling resident of California's shallow kelp reefs — sedentary, long-lived and beloved of reef divers.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Profile of the great sculpin — one of the largest sculpins of the North Pacific, its spiny head, ambush hunting and role in cold kelp-edge food webs.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The grunt sculpin is a thumb-sized fish that walks on its fin rays, hides inside empty barnacle shells and, it seems, impersonates the barnacle itself.
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 ·
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 ·
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 ·
The soupfin or school shark once blackened the water over kelp coasts — until a vitamin boom nearly erased it. Meet Galeorhinus galeus.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The Pacific spiny lumpsucker is a walnut-sized armoured fish that clamps to kelp and eelgrass with a suction-disc belly. Biology, range, where to look.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The white sea bass is California's great croaker — a metre-and-a-half predator of kelp edge and open water, nearly lost, fighting back. Biology, fishery and comeback.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Yelloweye rockfish can live more than a century on a single reef. Identification, the barotrauma problem, and the rules helping this red giant recover.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Identify the coralline sculpin — the small California reef fish whose pink-and-grey skin lets it vanish against crusts of coralline algae.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Red in red algae, green in surfgrass, spotted all over — the spotted kelpfish rewrites its own wardrobe to match the kelp it hides in. How to know one.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Soft as jelly, clinging like a limpet: the kelp snailfish lives where the forest meets the rock. Identification, ecology and where to look for one.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The masked greenling is a small, dark-barred reef fish of Alaska's shallow kelp and eelgrass beds. How to identify it — and the nest-guarding life it leads.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Small, barred and easy to overlook, the reef surfperch works the noisy seam where kelp forest meets breaking surf — and gives birth to fully formed young.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Profile of the buffalo sculpin — its jutting preopercular spines, reported venom, bright guarded egg masses and life in northeast Pacific kelp beds.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The northern clingfish grips rough rock with a suction disc no engineered cup can match. Meet the small fish that surfs storm surge under stones and holdfasts.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
In one generation, gillnets erased the giant sea bass from its kelp forests. Four decades of protection are bringing it back — one cautious shadow at a time.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the woolly sculpin, the little California tidepool fish that survives heat, rain-fresh water and hours in the air between tides.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the crescent gunnel — the crescent-marked, rock-flipping eel-lookalike of Pacific tidepools, and why its colours make it a barometer of the weed it lives in.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Identifying the walleye surfperch: the big-eyed, silver schooler of kelp edges and sand flats, and a member of the ocean's great live-bearing family.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
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 ·
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 ·
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 ·
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 ·
Meet the tidepool sculpin, the Pacific's toughest little fish: how it survives heat, low oxygen and hours out of water — and finds its way home.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the Pacific angelshark, the sand-buried ambusher of California's kelp edges: how it hunts, how it nearly vanished, and how it came back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·