The Monterey submarine canyon is an ideal place for many marine organisms to inhabit or migrate through, and bocaccio in this canyon can consume multiple marine species such as shellfish (pelagic shrimp and crab), anchovies, sardines, other small rockfishes, and squid.
atlanticus preys on other, larger pelagic organisms: the dangerously venomous Portuguese Man o' War Physalia physalis; the by-the-wind-sailor Velella velella; the blue button Porpita porpita; and the violet snail, Janthina janthina.
It is the biomass dominant pelagic fish over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge when the entire water column is fully considered.
The largest biomass of fish, however, is in the pelagic zone (open waters) and is dominated by six species: two species of "Tanganyika sardine" and four species of predatory Lates (related to, but not the same as, the Nile perch that has devastated Lake Victoria cichlids).
Midwater trawling catches pelagic fish such as anchovies, shrimp, tuna and mackerel, whereas bottom trawling targets both bottom living fish (groundfish) and semi-pelagic fish such as: cod, squid, halibut and rockfish.
Pleuroncodes planipes, a squat lobster also known as the "pelagic red crab"
Energy moves from the top to the bottom according to Vinogradov's ladder of migrations; that is, some species are benthic and others pelagic, but there are graded marine layers within which species move vertically for short distances.
This unique animal is currently believed to represent a "transitional organism", with physical and behavioral characteristics of both benthic (seabed-dwelling) and pelagic (free-swimming) organisms.
Adults are threatened only by the largest and fastest hunters, such as toothed whales, particularly the false killer whale, pelagic sharks such as the mako and great white, large Atlantic blue marlin and Pacific blue marlin, and black marlin.