16 articles
The big skate is the Pacific's largest skate — a 2.4-metre flatfish-eyed predator of the kelp-edge sands, famous for giant mermaid's-purse egg cases with twins inside.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The canary rockfish went from overfished to rebuilt in fifteen years — one of the US west coast's most instructive fisheries recovery stories.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
How the ENSO cycle works — trade winds, thermocline tilt, warm pools and global teleconnections — and why the Pacific's mood swings reach every ocean.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
1,000 km northeast of Auckland, the Kermadec Islands hold kelp at its warm edge — volcanoes, tropical fish and one of New Zealand's great marine reserves.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
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 ·
The spotted ratfish is a deep-bodied chimaera with green eyes, a venomous spine and a forehead clamp — a living fossil that haunts Pacific kelp waters by night.
Tom Okafor ·
The lingcod is not a cod at all — a big-headed, voracious ambush predator of Pacific kelp reefs, famous for blue-green flesh and fiercely guarded nests.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The wolf eel is not an eel and nothing to fear — a devoted, den-dwelling wolffish that crushes sea urchins for a living and guards its eggs for months.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
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 ·
The red sea urchin can live a century, grows to dinner-plate size, and feeds the uni trade. Meet the kelp forest's most venerable grazer — and its fishery.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Sea otters eat a quarter of their body weight a day — much of it sea urchins. How this small predator became the kelp forest's most famous keystone species.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the giant Pacific octopus: the world's largest octopus, a kelp-forest den-dweller with three hearts, blue blood and one shot at motherhood.
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 ·
Meet the sharpnose crab — a small Pacific spider crab that plants living algae on hooked hairs across its shell. How the disguise works and where to find it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
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 ·