Natural History:
 
 

• Live in tide pools
• Have on or two pale spots
• Brown color
• Can grow up to 66 cm in length
• Young are green on top silvery on bottom
• Few days or night to turn to adult colors
• Pelagic young enter tide pools at 1 inch.
• Loose schooling habits and form typical loose aggregation of tide pools
• Juveniles and subadults seek increasingly deeper water
• Mature at 8-9 in. at about 2-3 years of age
• Spawning in Monterey region in warmer waters
• Gene flow is limited between Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortez because of limited larval dispersal between these areas (Terry, A. et al)

Picture by David Duggins

• Intertidal with homing behavior
• Marine at depth of 2-30m
• Near or over rocks
• Kelp Beds up to 30m deep

Picture by David Duggins

• Subtropical 0-33 degrees Celsius
• 38 degrees north-23 degrees north latitude
• Range: San Francisco Bay to south Baja California
• Common to southern California
• Most at S. Point of Conception

 

 
 











Picture by David Duggins










• Feeding
• Seaweed
• Feather boa kelp
• Giant kelp
• Sea lettuce
• Coralline algae
• Organisms attached to seaweed
• Occasionally invertebrates
• Small tube dwelling polychaetes
• Bryosoans
• Pelagic Red Crabs
• Forms dense schools in spring in kelp beds
• Adults ripe in April, May, and June
• Young appear in tide pools from March –October
• Eggs & larvae pelagic

• Game fish and may be caught in commercial fishing
• Small baited hook or spear fishing
• Largest Fish on record
• 25.5” speared of Laguna, 13.46 lbs