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Wednesday roundup: Feliz Nudidad! Benthic ecology on lost shipping containers!
An animated GIF of a nudibranch in the snow might be the funniest thing ever.
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In Pursuit of Pygmy Seahorses
The scene is a hotel room in Anilao, Philippines. Our heroine is standing over a console table, assembling an underwater camera, when her husband enters the room with news from their dive guide. HUSBAND: The boat is going looking for pygmy seahorses today. How big are they, anyway? Our heroine looks up, instinctively making a…
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How to Fall in Love with Nudibranchs in 12 Easy Steps
It is no secret that I love the nudibranch. But it may come as a surprise that not everyone shares my branchophile tendencies. Fortunately, I have devised a twelve-step program to convert even the most reluctant slug-lover lover into a nudi connoisseur.
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Frogfish are basically sponges with mouths
How to find a frogfish? Look for sponges. Look at all the sponges. If a sponge looks like it has a mouth, it might be a frogfish. If it doesn’t look like it has a mouth, it might still be a frogfish. Maybe poke it. If it moves, your chances that it is a frogfish…
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The Saddest Seahorse
You may be guilty of anthropomorphizing marine life when you find yourself asking a seahorse, “Why the long face?”
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Sexy Shrimp
… No, really, that’s what it’s called. Thor amboinensis, also known as the Sexy Shrimp, lives symbiotically on another invertebrate–most often a sea anemone–trading cleaning service for protection. It’s called “sexy” because it twerks its little tail as it dances around its anemone. This shrimp, found in Anilao, Philippines, was about half an inch long.
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The Recalcitrant Seahorse
Once upon a time, in a magical far away land called Curaçao, there was a seahorse. And it was a jerk. Every time I approached it with my camera, it would turn its back to me. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes, it even just got up and walked away. I hated that seahorse. And…
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Wednesday Link Roundup: Muck Diving in the Philippines, Shooting Supermacro with Wet Diopters, Diving Cleopatra’s Sunken Palace
Happy Thanksgiving! I’m spending the next week and a half in Anilao, Philippines, one of the muck diving Meccas of the world. Muck diving is so named for the muddy bottom composition at the dive site. This sediment is home to a host of exotic critters, such as nudibranchs, frogfish, pygmy seahorses, and blue ringed…
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Sunlight streaming through the Catalina kelp forest canopy
Just a quickie today. Visibility on our little island Santa Catalina is routinely much better than it is over here on the mainland, but I don’t usually see the Catalina kelp forest quite this good. This was taken off Two Harbors at Ship Rock.
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The Ruby E: One of San Diego’s Most Richly Historied Shipwrecks
The Ruby E, one of San Diego’s premiere wrecks for divers, has a rich and colorful history. Although initially commissioned to intercept Prohibition-Era alcohol shipments on behalf of the United States Coast Guard, she also assisted in Bering Sea patrols, thwarted Japanese task forces in the Aleutian Islands during WWII, and worked as a commercial…