A process of comparative pattern recognition is undertaken for the purpose of garnering insights into the mechanisms underlying some currently puzzling conundrums in fishery resource ecology. These include (a) out‐of‐phase oscillations between anchovies and sardines, (b) the remarkable fish productivity of the Peru–Humboldt marine ecosystem, (c) sardine population increases in the eastern Pacific during El Niños, (d) basin‐wid...