#kelp forests

[swampandbone]

I need to hide some fish in the kelp on my next one 🐠🐠🐠

[jadafitch]

More art for Tasha Greenwood’s Edible & Medicinal Seaweeds: A Guide to Healing & Nutritive Ocean Plants, published by Storey. Sea otters help protect kelp forests by snacking on sea urchin populations that would otherwise overgraze kelp.

[heartnosekid]

katevylet on ig

[lovehina019]

[driftnotes]

The Power Hiding in Underwater Forests

Biodiversity is the bedrock of resilience, and kelp forests show why.

Just in time for World Oceans Day on June 8, TIME's new Oceans Issue highlights the forests and jungles and life! that live below the surface of the sea.

Thank you, TIME, for reminding us our stories above the oceans are inextricably tied to those below it.

[mindblowingscience]

Pacific kelp forests are way older than we thought

Pacific kelp forests are more than twice as old as previously thought, according to new fossil research.

The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years. But the new study shows that kelp flourished off the Northwest Coast more than 32 million years ago, long before the appearance of modern groups of marine mammals, sea urchins, birds, and bivalves that today call the forests home.

Continue Reading.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Sunlight Illuminates Undulating Kelp Forests in Underwater Photographs by Douglas Klug

[livinseas2]

Edit: this is an archive blog now, blog has moved to livinseas

The striped kelpfish is another one of my favorites, after I had the very fun experience of working with one closely when I volunteered in aquarium husbandry during my bachelor’s degree. However, I was very surprised to see how little research has been done on this fish, especially compared to the giant kelpfish (Heterostichus rostratus) or the spotted kelpfish (Gibbonsia elegans). The one I worked with would viciously dive after my aquarist tongs for teeny, tiny pieces of smelt or would try to hide himself in the aquarium decor, all while staring at me with ‘you can’t see me’ written across his face. One of my favorite things to do was watch him ‘walk’ around on the sandy bottom of the tank using his tiny pelvic fins (the small fins on the underside of the fish near the head) as feet!

Citations:

Feder, H. M., Turner, C. H., & Limbaugh, C. (1974). Fish Bulletin 160. Observations On Fishes Associated With Kelp Beds in Southern California.

Gibbons metzi - Hubbs, 1927. Fishbase. Retrieved 10 August, 2025, from https://www.fishbase.org/summary/Gibbonsia_metzi.html

Stepien, C. A. (1987). Color pattern and habitat differences between male, female and juvenile giant kelpfish (Blennioidei: Clinidae). Bulletin of marine science, 41(1), 45-58.

Stepien, C. A., Glattke, M., & Fink, K.M. (1988). Regulation and Significance of Color Patterns of the Spotted Kelpfish, Gibbonsia elegans Cooper, 1864.

Williams, J.T. 2014. Gibbonsia metzi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014: e.T178917A1547499. Retrieved 10 August, 2015, from https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2014-3.RLTS.T178917A1547499.en