Animalia Life

Hexagrammos decagrammus
FAMILY
Hexagrammidae
TAXONOMY
Hexagrammos decagrammus Pallas, 1810, formerly Chiropsis decagrammus Pallas, Cape St. Elias, Alaska, United States.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Tommy cod, speckled sea trout, greenling sea trout.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Reaches 24 in (61 cm), 4.6 lb (2.1 kg), males smaller. Five lateral lines occur along each side of body, and the male is bluebrown with prominent light blue spots on top of head and anterior body; the female is yellow-brown with small red or orange spots.
DISTRIBUTION
Santa Monica Bay, southern California, to Amchitka Island (Aleutians), Alaska.
HABITAT
Inhabits shallow, subtidal seabed on rocky shores, often around kelp beds.
BEHAVIOR
Fairly active; males in particular cruise around a home area during daylight. More aggressive than the whitespotted greenling, Hexagrammos stelleri, which sometimes cohabits with kelp greenlings, the kelp greenling even feeds on unguarded lingcod eggs.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Small shrimps as well as worms and small fishes.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Courtship occurs in late fall, with spawning from October through December, eggs hatching in January through February. The male guards the nest site, at which successive females will be courted for spawn deposition. Eggs are blue to purple with a pale center when first laid, becoming golden brown when embryos are eyed. Larval and pelagic juvenile stages last about two months, with these early stages a gun barrel blue, with snub snout shape. Juveniles school over rock faces prior to settlement and metamorphosis to a benthic juvenile resembling the adult. Sexually dimorphic color is evident during the first summer.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not listed by the IUCN. Kelp greenlings are caught as bycatch in hook and line fisheries for live rockfishes, and have achieved their own localized market demand in Asian communities in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Little potential exists for overharvest by sport anglers unless using small tackle, owing to small mouth size. Serious depletion of larger groundfish species could prelude the depletion of greenlings in a localized area, since hook, live market, and line fishery includes landings of greenlings as well as larger groundfishes.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
Fillets of kelp greenling are high quality. Kelp greenlings are desired in the retail marketing of live fish (primarily rockfishes). Kelp greenlings are too small to provide enjoyable sport fishing unless light tackle is used, but greenlings are easy to catch and therefore provide good sport for small children.

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