About Us

About Us

The BlennyWatcher Blog

The Blenny is our poster fish but we love all fish, big or small. And marine invertebrates – the smaller and more bizarre, the better. This is our forum for sharing the things that strike our fancy underwater, and from time to time,we also include topside adventures and occasionally dust off favorites from our files.

Anna and Ned DeLoach

Anna & Ned DeLoach

A retired computer scientist, Anna DeLoach started shooting underwater video to assist husband Ned in studying and documenting fish behavior for Reef Fish Behavior: Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean. Her comprehensive video footage proved indispensable for analyzing fish behaviors detailed in the book and series of articles that she and Ned write for diving magazines. In 2011 she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame.

Over the past three decades, Ned DeLoach has co-authored, with Paul Humann, ten marine life field guides, including the award winning Reef Fish Identification, Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas.  For fifty years Ned shepherded the popular Diving Guide to Florida through eleven editions. Along the way he also wrote marine life columns for Ocean Realm, Skin Diver and Sport Diver magazines.

In the early 1990’s, Ned and Paul co-founded REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) where he and Anna continue to serve as board members. In 2006, he was recognized by the United States Coral Reef Task Force for outstanding efforts to advance public knowledge and education through both the publication of the field guides and for founding REEF. In 2015, Anna and Ned were honored as Scuba Diving Magazine Sea Heroes for their conservation and education work.

For the past decade Anna and Ned have written the marine wildlife behavior column, Encounters, for Alert Diver magazine. Since 2004, they have served as resident naturalists at Buddy Dive in Bonaire, where they spend the month of September teaching fish identification and presenting programs about marine life behavior. Much of what they observed in Bonaire was included in their latest edition of Reef Fish Behavior: Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean, published in November 2019.

Enneanectes deloachorum, Two-bar triplefin

The Fishes

In 2013, Dr. Ben Victor honored Ned and Anna by naming a Caribbean fish for them:  Enneanectes deloachorum, the Two-bar triplefin.

In 2012, Ned discovered a previously undescribed fangblenny in Indonesia and in 2017, Dr. Bill Smith-Vaniz named the fish Adelotremus deloachi in his honor.  Anna’s discovery of two previously undescribed fishes in Indonesia, a fairy wrasse and a flasherwrasse, were acknowledged in the formal descriptions by Drs. Allen and Erdmann who honored Anna’s & Ned’s co-author Paul Humann (Cirrhilabrus humanni) and their dive guide Rahmad (Yan) Alfian (Paracheilinus alfiani).

New fairy wrasse, Cirrhilabrus humanni by Ned DeLoach

Cirrhilabrus humanni

Paracheilinus alfiani from Lembata by Ned DeLoach

Paracheilinus alfiani

Adelotremus deloachi from Bali

Adelotremus deloachi