Black Cormorant

Dendronotus Mating

Dendronotus nudibranchs in intimate contact.  Nudibranchs have active sex lives and are often seen mating.  Their eggs are common; the fraction that grow to adults must be tiny.

Tritona Festiva

Tritona Festiva sounds like a car in pale blue instead of a nudibranch.  I think that they look like chenille bedspreads. Chenille is  back in style!

Kelp With Urchins: The Urchin Barrens

In many spots, urchins have devoured the bottom cover, leaving bare rock. These areas don't seem to be healthy for urchins either, because they are smaller than in areas with more abundant bottom life.

Kelp Canopy

Sunlight shining through the kelp canopy. On a clear day, the kelp forest seems to contain more light than an abovewater forest.

Krill in the Kelp Forest

Krill and black rockfish in a kelp forest, at San Miguel Island. Often, gray whales stop off at San Miguel to dine on the krill, on their way to the Northwest Pacific where they spend their summers.

Laputa

Often, kelp has enough buoyancy to lift the rocks that originally anchored it on the seafloor. Darwin wrote, in Voyage of the Beagle, "A few taken together are sufficiently strong to support the weight of the large loose stones, to which in the inland channels they grow attached; and yet some of these stones were so heavy that when drawn to the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by one person." In other cases, the rocks drop off, leaving the holdfast at the kelp's base without anyting to which to hold fast. They seem like the island of Laputa in Gulliver's Travels: floating from place to place above the Earth, supporting its disengaged citizens.

A Cloudy Day in the Kelp Forest

Although occasionally the kelp forest is beautifully clear, often suspended life in the water makes for cloudy conditions.

Perch at Arch Rock

Pile perch and rubberlip seaperch form an aggregation at Arch Rock, Santa Cruz Island. Fish seem to like arches, which are common underwater: maybe the buoyancy of the water helps to support the arches. Backsmiths and a sheepshead also join in.

Sand Dollar Bed

Sand dollar beds at Arch Rock, Santa Cruz. For some reason sand dollars like to group together in beds. They usually orient themselves perpendicular to shore, so that surge washes past them, bringing food. They are often buried when the sand shifts off the beach, but seem to dig themselves out quickly.

Juvenile Kelp Bass

Kelp bass (or calico bass) always look thuglike -- even the young ones. One or two of them always seem to hang around hunting octopi. Are they hoping to bite off an arm, or that the octopus will flush something they can eat? The reflective eyes look like mirror shades. Making any eye contact with kelp bass seen hanging around convenience stores is definitely a bad idea.