Coeloplana astericola
March 2013, Halmahera, Indonesia ~ Oh no! Right before my eyes, my beloved benthic ctenophores, so delicate and colorful, have metamorphosed from gentle plankton netters to smothering killers of fishes and crabs! Drifting over a black rubble slope off Makian, our guide Yann Alfian points out a ctenophore-covered starfish. During our October trip around Batanta aboard the Dewi Nusantara, Yann asked me why I was spending so much time looking at these things on the starfish. I explained that these … Read more
Since we started the Blennywatcher Blog, we have met some really interesting people online. Two in particular have helped educate me about the subjects of my own posts and I am indebted to them for their willingness to share information. This past February, I posted video of a tiny frogfish and several juvenile lionfish that we observed riding around on Protoreaster nodosus sea stars (the link to that post is here). A few days later, Dr. Peter Wirtz contacted me after reading … Read more