Spineless
Banda Sea, April 2014 ~ This algae covered decorator crab, found by Ned on a night dive off Pantar, Indonesia, is one of my favorite images from our April trip around the Banda Sea. We boarded the Dewi Nusantara in Ambon and dived our way down through and around the southern perimeter of the Banda Sea and across through the Alor region, ending in Flores. And oh, what a trip! Last year, I posted about the little bryozoan goby that … Read more
For the past two weeks, we challenged you to test your identification skills on invertebrate close-ups from the Indo-Pacific. As promised, here is a Caribbean invertebrate quiz. These images are close-ups of invertebrates that are found in the waters of the tropical western Atlantic and Caribbean. Click on each image to reveal the entire animal: Hope you have enjoyed these past few posts – we’ll be back with more from time to time ~ the Blennywatchers
A few days ago, we posted an invertebrate quiz made up of five close-up images that could be clicked on to reveal the entire animal. Response was good, so here are five more from the Indo-Pacific to try out: Check back with us soon. We’ll post invertebrates from the Caribbean next.
Invertebrates! Animals without backbones. Today we are celebrating the diversity and beauty of Earth’s 97% with a little quiz. Here is your chance to test your knowledge and enjoy some of our favorite marine invertebrates from the Indo-Pacific. To take the quiz, scroll down and see if you recognize the invertebrate. Click on each photo to reveal the answer. They might be easy for some of you but we hope you have fun anyway. We’ll be back later this week with … Read more
What is this Carry Crab carrying? It was a mystery to us for a week. The common name, carry crab (sometimes called carrier crab) applies to crabs in several families that disguise themselves by using modified back legs to grip things like, well, like just about anything. In previous posts, we showed photos and video of a crab carrying a sea pen, one carrying a banana peel and even a crab carrying a live nudibranch. I’ve circled the crab, in … Read more
This is the last in our series of posts from our recent trip to Dominica. Alternate habitats like sand flats and sea grass beds can be “hit or miss” – we might find all kinds of interesting things or we might wander around for an hour and get skunked. Either way, it is the thrill of the hunt that makes it fun. The grass bed at the site called Champagne was a winner so we ended up diving there 3 … Read more
Dominica 2014 ~ Two of our recent posts have been about our visit to Dominica in the eastern Caribbean. There were too many photos for one post, so this is Dominica Fishes – Part 2. The lizardfish below is a Sand Diver, Synodus intermedius. Just after entering the water at one of our favorite Dominica reefs, Danglebens Pinnacles, I saw Ned make a dash for the sand down at 80 feet. He had seen the Sand Diver sitting very still, … Read more
Dominica, February 2014 ~ Poring through the new copy of Reef Creature Identification between dives, our guides Tony and Imran mentioned that they could find Onuphis worms, specifically, an undescribed species that we had never personally seen before. Tony showed us one at the very end of a fish survey dive and in the excitement, ahem, all air was consumed from certain tanks. The site was shallow and full of other interesting things so plans were made to return the following … Read more
Our submission for this week’s Photo Friday topic: Alive is tiny a Flamboyant Cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi), about to hatch. We’ve shot this several times over the years; the first time was in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia in 2006. At the time, we had no idea how to tell when the cuttlefish would hatch, so we spent hours and hours over many days, watching them. We finally learned that when they are ready, the developed cuttlefish would turn these dark red, purple … Read more
Here’s another strange one: A nudibranch that attaches to and eats the fins of shrimp gobies! Shrimp gobies are cool fishes – teaming up with nearsighted burrow-building shrimp, the vigilant gobies act as sentinels, watching for danger, while the shrimp build communal burrows. Life is good out on the sand flat, right? Well yes, until the little nudibranch, Gymnodoris nigricolor, enters the scene. In the photo, the nudibranch is the little black job hanging onto the fin of the goby. … Read more