Chevron Barracuda

Photo: Mark Rosenstein · CC BY-NC

Chevron barracuda form enormous circling tornadoes at Rock Point East, a schooling behavior that may serve to confuse predators or coordinate cooperative feeding on smaller fish driven to the surface by the current. Unlike the solitary great barracuda, chevrons remain in tightly coordinated groups of hundreds, which creates an almost hypnotic vortex effect when the school banks and the silver bodies catch the light simultaneously. Their presence indicates healthy mid-water food chains anchored by the plankton-rich upwellings at the point.