When I look at this pixture.... I think that he is waving me off.
You know.... "Hey back off buddy, I need room to swim here".
But I really wasn't as close as it looks.
So, it's probably more like.... "Ha ha, this fool thinks he can swim with me."
A slight turn and two leisurely kicks of his flippers.... was all that it took to prove that he was right.
Every time that I take a pixture of a Spiny Lobster .... I am struck by the same thought.
It's a very good thing that they taste so good.
Because, if we had to judge them on their looks .... they would get no love at all.
I am not sure how something can be this ugly .... and boring at the same time.
But they do manage to pull that off.
This pixture does a good job of showing just how transparent .... the body of a Spotted Cleaner Shrimp really is.
They are found all throughout the Caribbean and can be found on the reef as deep as 79ft.
They live in association with an Anemone.
Their job is to clean the parasites and flakes of dead skin from the fish .... that visit the cleaning station.
A job that includes entering the mouths and gills of fish they clean.
So here's my question.
If you were there, with a good view, during the cleaning .... would you actually see the food inside their body?
Or is it too microscopic to be seen .... with the naked eye.
This is the 1st pixture that I have ever taken of a Nudibranch.
It might actually be the 1st time I have ever seen one live.
Nudibranchs are a mollusk .... so a shell would be common.
But these guys shed that shell ....when they leave the larval stage.
The word nudibranch comes from the Latin "nudus", meaning naked .... and the Greek "brankhia" meaning gills.
And refers to the shell they don't have.
You can find them in every ocean .... and you can find them at a variety of depths (some as deep as 8200 ft).
There are over 3000 species of nudibranchs .... so they come in a variety of shapes.
But you can pretty much always count on them having striking colors.
They use these colors .... two different ways.
As camouflage to match the brightly colored reef around them .... as you see here.
Or as contrast to surroundings .... always a warning in the underwater world.
Something that goes out of it's way to stand out in a world full of predators .... is at best, going to taste really bad.
And, quite often will be poisonous .... to anything that touches or eats it.
