Animalia Life
Sebastes paucispinis
FAMILY
Sebastidae
TAXONOMY
Sebastes paucispinis Ayres, 1854, California.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Rock salmon; Spanish: Rocote bocaccio.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Grows to 37.4 in (95 cm) maximum length. Bocaccios are one
of the most elongate rockfishes in California and one of the
least spiny rockfishes. They tend to be reddish brown on
the dorsal surface, pink or brown on the flanks, and silver
ventrally. Juveniles and small adults are reddish brown with
dark spots.
DISTRIBUTION
Widespread from Alaska to Baja California. They are most
abundant from British Columbia to Washington.
HABITAT
Juveniles typically are collected in shallow waters under drifting
kelp mats that have broken free. Adults form benthic aggregations
over hard and rocky bottoms at depths ranging
from 164 to 984 ft (50–300 m).
BEHAVIOR
Bocaccios are a mobile rockfish. Tagged juveniles often are recaptured
60–80 mi (97–129 km) away from their point of origin.
As with many other scorpaenoids, the bocaccio is
venomous, but the venom is comparatively weak (although local
fishermen suggest that they are the most venomous of the
rockfishes).
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Juveniles feed on small fishes, particularly other rockfishes.
Adults feed on rockfishes, sablefishes (Anoplopomatidae), anchovies
(Engraulidae), and squids. Eaten by larger fishes and
pinnipeds.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
As with all sebastids, the bocaccio is viviparous (live bearing).
Large females can produce more than two million eggs per
season, which are released as larvae in two or more batches.
Rockfish larvae remain in the upper 263 ft (80 m) of the water
column for several months. This stage is followed by a pelagic
juvenile stage that lasts one to several months, after which the
larvae settle.
CONSERVATION STATUS
The bocaccio is the only Critically Endangered scorpaenoid.
This listing suggests that the population size has decreased by
more than 80% in about the last ten years of the twentieth century,
owing to the pressure of overfishing and the low minimum
population doubling time, which is longer than 14 years.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
As their population decline suggests, bocaccios traditionally
have been a very important commercial and recreational food
fish in the eastern Pacific. When they were more abundant,
they represented more than 14% of the total marine recreational
catch of California.