Coastal Kelp Forest
Did you know?
Girl or boy? For a California sheephead fish, it depends when you ask. They start out female, then turn male around age 10. Come to the Kelp Forest and meet our sheephead, Buddy!
Explore the Kelp
Meet Our Animals
|
Not just an underbite
Sheephead like to crunch
|
California sheephead have strong teeth to crunch the lobster, crab, sea urchin and mussels they love to eat, and special bones in their throats to finish the job.
|
To avoid predators, they wrap themselves in a mucus cocoon to rest at night. Predators can’t smell them through the mucus.
|
|
Fade to black (and white)
Rockfish go deep
|
Flag rockfish hide while young under protective kelp leaves. As they grow, they move to deeper water – often 200-700 feet, and sometimes over 1,300 feet deep.
|
Down this far, red colors fade and darken, and this red striped fish turns almost to black and white, like a zebra.
|
|
Hot lips
for flagfish
|
Treefish are also known as “lipstick fish” because of the bright red coloring that warns other fish out of their territory.
|
They also raise their dorsal fins, facing off with open mouths and sometimes locking jaws with intruders to scare them off.
|
Help the kelp
THE THREAT: Kelp forests such as those in California and southern Australia have in the past been decimated by sea urchins, who eat through the kelp without enough sea otters to keep them in check.
TAKE ACTION: For 15 years our Zoo has taken part in the Washington Sea Otter Survey. Help protect otters – and other marine mammals – by reducing your plastic use and keeping trash out of the ocean.
Aquarium Stories
NOTE: This exam took place before recent social distancing recommendations were mandated. “Everyone ready?” Seven heads nodded, seven pairs of feet braced in neoprene boots, and four pairs of thickly-gloved hands readied a wide, webbed stretcher. The aquarist team had gathered in the South Pacific Aquarium isolation pool at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, with … Continued
On the visitor side, the jellyfish gallery in the Pacific Seas Aquarium is a serene blue world of floating, pulsing forms. From eggcup to dinner-plate size, they hover in a kind of translucent eternity. Behind a nearby door, however, is another world; a world of bubbling tanks, petri dishes and complicated piping. This is the … Continued
The white sand glows as you curve with a hammerhead shark through azure waters. Later, you tilt and dive down deep to rescue a green sea turtle from a plastic net – and are repaid with a magical tour through a coral wonderland. Four captivating ocean adventures await you with Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium’s … Continued