Category: Muck Diving
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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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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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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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Diving at La Jolla Shores is like Going to the Zoo…
… In that I always seem to end up seeing one of everything. Seriously, head down there with a creature checklist and cross it off, and then ascend when you’ve seen it all. WOW, what an amazing night dive at La Jolla Shores. We went in at 8pm and dropped into about 15 feet of…
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Melibe leonina nudibranchs are weird and awesome
Nudibranchs never cease to amaze me. Just when I think I’ve had enough nudibranchs for, like, ever, a new one I’ve never seen before comes along and voilà, instant nudibranch love affair all over again. I’d seen the Melibe leonina nudibranch in photos but never in the flesh (in the slime?). Then we went for a shore…