Crab Eating Octopus

Crab Eating Juvenile Octopus Live

True crabs use their claws to ward off predators, to grab items, to dig, and more! This month our gallery theme is all about getting weird and wild.  This is a photo of a crab eating the head of a juvenile octopus.  The photo was taken off West Palm Beach, Florida at the popular Blue […]

Smooth Tooth Aeolis

Smooth Tooth Aeolis Live

Aeolids are a type of small sea slug This is a Smooth Tooth Aeolis (also known as Price’s Aeolid).  What is an “aeolid”?  An aeolid is a type of small sea slug (about one inch) that we also refer to as a “nudibranch”.  What is a nudibranch?  A “nudi” is a soft bodied marine gastropod […]

Dwarf Seahorse

Dwarf Seahorse Black Water Sound Live

The dwarf seahorse is the “slowest-moving fish”! Seahorses rely on camouflage as their primary form of survival.  As if sea horses weren’t hard enough to find already, there is a type of seahorse called a “dwarf seahorse”.  To find these, you need a sharp eye, patience, and luck.  This photo is a dwarf seahorse that […]

Fingerprint Cyphoma

Fingerprint Cyphoma Live

Fingerprint cyphomas eat sea fans and sea whips “What am I looking at?”  That is usually what people think when they see a fingerprint cyphoma.  What is a fingerprint cyphoma?  These are about one-inch long gastropods.  Think of them like underwater snails.  Many divers are familiar with a similar marine gastropod, the flamingo tongue.  Fingerprint […]

Arrow Crab Duel

Arrow Crab Full

Arrow Crab – IUCN Conservation Status: Insufficient Data Arrow crabs don’t seem to mind divers This is a photo of two arrow crabs fighting.  During this dive, I remember watching the arrow crabs battle, presumably over territory.  When the one arrow crab grabbed the other arrow crab’s blue claws, I took the shot.  Arrow crabs […]

Spotted Cleaner Shrimp

Spotted Cleaner Shrimp

This shrimp can be found among anemone. Believe it or not, this beautiful shrimp is less than one inch long. Spotted cleaner shrimp are found among certain species of anemone, in this case a corkscrew anemone. As the name implies, this shrimp actually “cleans” the parasites, dead tissue, and algae off of fish. If you […]

Green Sea Turtle

Turtle Black and White Full

To say the turtle was wrapped in fishing line would be an understatement Diving on a patch reef in the Florida Keys about a month ago, I came across this turtle. It swam right up to me and my dive buddy. To say he was wrapped up in fishing line would be an understatement. The turtle had fishing […]

Honu

Green Sea Turtle Full

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, […]

Banded Sea Urchin

Banded Sea Urchin Full

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 […]

Red Pencil Urchin

Red Pencil Urchin Full

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 […]