Encyclopedia8 min read
Black-Eyed Goby: Two Inches of Nerve Over the Kelp Floor
The blackeye goby's hovering economy: how a 10 cm fish harvests plankton over reef edges, feeds the food web, and tells surveyors what a reef is doing.
Tom Okafor ·
#kelp-forest-fish
18 articles
Encyclopedia7 min read
Black Surfperch: The Kelp Bed's Plodding Picnicker
The black surfperch (Embiotoca jacksoni) is the thick-lipped, slow-browsing seaperch of California kelp beds — live-bearing, territorial and endlessly photogenic.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Blackeye Goby: The Drifting Guard Posts of the Kelp Bed
Pale, black-eyed and hovering nose-down over the reef: how to find, identify and read the blackeye goby, one of the kelp forest's most telling fish.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Copper Rockfish: The Long-Lived Reef Resident That Needs Kelp to Hide
The copper rockfish (Sebastes caurinus) is a cryptic, long-lived, home-ranged reef fish of Pacific kelp forests. Biology, fishery history and how it recovers.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Giant Kelpfish (Heterostichus rostratus): The Shape-Shifting Kelp Mimic
The giant kelpfish changes colour to vanish among kelp blades. Identification, camouflage, behaviour and life cycle of this Southern California clinid.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Kelp Greenling (Hexagrammos decagrammus): Species Profile
Kelp greenling are the kelp forest's most colourful small residents — blue-speckled, sex-changing-looking, nest-guarding. Biology, fishery and where to see them.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Kelp Rockfish: Life Suspended in the Canopy
The kelp rockfish (Sebastes atrovirens) lives in the kelp canopy itself — a mottled, camouflaged hunter: identification, habitat, life history and where to see it.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Marblefish: The Odd Surgeon of the Southern Kelp
Marbled, thick-lipped and built to crop kelp: the marblefish of New Zealand and southern Australia, a herbivore with the reef's strangest tools.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Painted Greenling (Oxylebius pictus): The Small Flash on the Reef
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 ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Pile Perch: The Striped Midwater Browser
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 ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Sarcastic Fringehead: The Mouth-First Homemaker of the Reef
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 ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Shiner Surfperch: The Silver Cloud in the Canopy
The shiner surfperch (Cymatogaster aggregata) is the small, schooling seaperch of Pacific kelp beds and piers — a live-bearing forage fish worth knowing.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Speckled Sanddab: The Palm-Sized Flatfish of the Kelp Margin
Meet the speckled sanddab (Citharichthys stigmaeus): a palm-sized flatfish that vanishes into sand, feeds the whole kelp coast, and signals bottom health.
Tom Okafor ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Swell Shark (Cephaloscyllium ventriosum): The Inflatable Night Shark
It sleeps all day in kelp-bed crevices, hunts by night, and inflates like a balloon when threatened. Meet the swell shark of the Pacific coast.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
Treefish: The Golden Rockfish of California's Kelp
Meet the treefish (Sebastes serriceps) — the tiger-barred golden rockfish of California kelp reefs: identification, habitat, behaviour and conservation.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Blue Rockfish (Sebastes mystinus): The Schooling Sentinel of Pacific Kelp Forests
The blue rockfish (Sebastes mystinus) is a blue-black schooling mainstay of Pacific kelp forests. Biology, fishery and what its presence tells us.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Encyclopedia7 min read
California Moray: The Kelp Reef's Patient Ambusher
Meet the California moray eel — a nocturnal, crevice-dwelling ambush predator of Pacific kelp reefs, with pharyngeal jaws and a reputation it doesn't deserve.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Kelp Bass (Paralabrax clathratus): Species Profile
Kelp bass — calico bass to the anglers who love them — are the signature sportfish of the kelp canopy. Biology, slow growth, sex change and sustainable fishing.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·