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Sunday, March 6, 2022

Partially pigmented

  

This afternoon I was helping Eric look for a few invertebrates in Bodega Harbor for his class when he called me over to look at a small fish.  It was only ~3 cm (a little over one inch) long.

The fins were only partially pigmented, which made the fish look "rough around the edges" and very much like a little piece of kelp:

 
 
Here's a closer view of the fins:
 
 
 
And one of the tail:
 
 
We're wondering if this could be a juvenile kelpfish, possibly a Crevice Kelpfish (Gibbonsia montereyensis)?  If you have any thoughts about the identification of this fish, we'd be interested!
 

1 comment:

Alice Chan said...

I *love* this little critter! What a great protective coloring and body and tail shape!