The kelp poacher (''Agonomalus mozinoi'') is a fish in the family

Agonidae Agonidae is a family of small, bottom-dwelling, cold-water marine fish. Common names for members of this family include poachers, Irish lords, sea ravens, alligatorfishes, starsnouts, hooknoses, and rockheads. They are notable for having elongate ...

.''Agonomalus mozinoi''
at www.fishbase.org. It was described by Norman Joseph Wilimovsky and Donald Edward Wilson in 1979, originally under the genus ''

Hypsagonus ''Hypsagonus'' is a genus of poachers native to the northern Pacific Ocean. Species There are currently two recognized species in this genus: * '' Hypsagonus corniger'' Taranetz, 1933 * '' Hypsagonus quadricornis'' (Valenciennes Valencienne ...

''.Wilimovsky, N. J. and D. E. Wilson, 1979 (1 May) ef. 8767''A new species of Agonidae, Agonomalus mozinoi, from the west coast of North America.'' Syesis v. 11: 73-79. It is a

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

water-dwelling fish which is known from northern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

to central

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, in the eastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. It dwells at a maximum depth of , and inhabits shallow, rocky regions. It uses its

pectoral fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as ...

s to climb the faces of rocks and crawl on the bottom. Its body is camouflaged by a coating of

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

and

seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of '' Rhodophyta'' (red), ''Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

. Males can reach a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies. These data are used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fisheries biology. Overall length * Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish ...

of . The kelp poacher is reported to spawn from January to May, in the United States.Spawning for ''Agonomalus mozinoi''
at www.fishbase.org.

References

Kelp poacher Taxa named by Norman Joseph Wilimovsky Taxa named by Donald Edward Wilson Fish described in 1979 {{Scorpaeniformes-stub