This little octopus was just peeking out of its burrow an made for a nice portrait…
Category: Underwater
On one of our last dives in Timor Leste, we went through an area where there were dozens of these tiny little anemones. I am not sure if they are just a very small species or if they were indeed babies/juveniles. I lean towards the…
Alright! Two easily identified species here. A Flagtail Shrimp Goby (Amblyeleotris yanoi) and its roommate a Randall’s Snapping Shrimp (Alpheus randalli)… both of which are beautifully colored and make me wish I could be back in those warm waters off a beach in Bali… I…
I remember this dive very well… The visibility was absolutely horrible. There were five of us, and we lost each other multiple times (once requiring a trip to the surface to regroup)… and we circled over the same patch a couple times trying to orient…
If you remember way back when, I told a story about finding a frogfish on a dive, and I mentioned that just prior to spotting the frogfish, we were paying attention to a lionfish… that is that lionfish. It is a Gurnard Lionfish (Parapterois hetururus)…
These octos get their name from being active during the day and indeed we spotted this one either hunting or hiding among the reef in Timor Leste. That distinct brown/white coloration is typical of a Day Octopus (Octopus cyanea), but they can also show a…
It isn’t too often that a nudibranch is this cooperative, but this series of photos shows how when I first spotted (pun intended!) this nudibranch, it was just crawling along the sea floor. However, as I got closer, it decided to sit up nice a…
Though this may really look like a nudibranch (and in particular one I’ve shared before), this is actually a juvenile sea cucumber – probably a Black Spotted Sea Cucumber (Bohadschia graeffei). One particular point you can use to spot the difference is the tube feet…
I only took one photo of these tiny little Sponge Isopods (Santia sp.) when I was in Timor Leste, and I kind of wish I had gotten some closer shots (though I also am not sure how close this one is). I am not sure…
A tiny little critter found during a night dive in Amed, this Olivar’s Squat Lobster (Munida olivarae) is only a little over an inch long including its claws.
Yes, you read that title correctly… this is a very deadly snail in the cone snail family. While I was on my Timor Leste expedition with Blue Ventures, our hazardous marine creatures lecture included a section about cone snails… of course most people scoff at…
These photos are of two different individuals, but they are among the coolest eels I’ve seen during diving. The Napoleon Snake Eel (Ophichthus bonaparti) gets to about two and a half feet long and lives in sandy burrows (as you can see from mostly just…
This seems to be a common thread, but here is another nudibranch that I am having a hard time identifying. I think the most likely identification is for Chromodoris tennentana or Goniobranchus tennentanus which are both the same (the Chromodoris family seems to have received…
Well, at least I think it is a Signalfin Goby (Coryphopterus signipinnis) – it is hard to tell with such a tiny and cryptic fish. They only get to about 1.25 inches long, but what is funny is I distinctly remember taking this photo and…
An odd looking fish we spotted during a muck dive on my second visit to La Bila, this is a Longhorn Cowfish (Lactoria conuta)… And those eyes are just as impressive as its horns…
