Yellowstripe Goatfish – IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern This species of fish is able to use camouflage Sometimes when you are underwater, you get visually overwhelmed as your surrounded by a school of fish. This was one of those times. I was snorkeling and freediving down to ten to fifteen feet, taking photos, and enjoying […]
Long-Spined Crown-of-Thorns – IUCN Conservation Status: Insufficient Data Over 1,500 species of fishes, invertebrates, and algae that call the nearshore waters of Hawai’i home My wife and I were on the most amazing snorkel trip of my life on the day that I took this photo. We had been in the water for about two […]
Reef Manta Ray – IUCN Conservation Status: Vulnerable This is a Vulnerable species according to the IUCN I was incredibly lucky to have been able to take this photo. Jill and I were snorkeling off the coast of the island of Hawai’i. What was particularly interesting about this snorkel is that it was in the […]
Bluespine Unicornfish – IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern In Hawai’i the bluespine unicornfish is known as “kala” The bluespine unicornfish can be found in the Indo-Pacific. Here it is pictured in the calm water off Poipu Beach on the island of Kauai in Hawai’i. It is also known by the common name, short-nose unicornfish. It […]
Conspicuous Sea Cucumber – IUCN Conservation Status: Insufficient Data The conspicuous sea cucumber is a bottom feeder The conspicuous sea cucumber is a particularly weird looking sea cucumber. It can be found in abundance in the waters of Kaneohe Bay off the coast of Oahu, Hawai’i. Their local abundance is noted by a rarity throughout […]
Brown Pelican – IUCN Conservation Status: Least Concern I’ve watched brown pelicans diving my entire life I absolutely love this photo because of the splash of water that you can see behind the brown pelican as it started to take off from the water. I don’t know which of us was more startled when I […]
Scrawled Cowfish – IUCN Conservation Status: LEAST CONCERN Notice the horns on the scrawled cowfish Scrawled Cowfish What catches your eye when you see this photo of a scrawled cowfish? For me it was two-fold: one, the mesmerizing blue and yellow pattern that covered the cowfish’s body, and two, the little horns that protrude from […]
The reefs were teeming with green sea turtles! The three photos that I contributed to this month’s underwater album all came from snorkeling adventures on my honeymoon. Jill and I got married in November, and we quickly made our way to Maui. There we spent 10 days taking in the sun, the hikes, the waterfalls, […]
The spinelets on this urchin can sting. This month I am featuring two urchins. I am always surprised when I come upon a reef that is covered in urchins. They are such peculiar creatures that spend most of their life in the exact same spot every day just eating the algae that is close enough […]
The red spines are typical to these urchins in Hawaii When I went underwater for my first snorkel in Hawaii, I was almost immediately met by the oddest-looking urchin that I had ever seen. After some research I found out that I was seeing my first Indo-Pacific endemic urchin, the Red Pencil Urchin; a.k.a. slate […]