Bearded Scorpionfish: A Name That Suits

Bearded Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis, barbatus), Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

Meet the Bearded Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis barbatus).  Both the common and scientific names of this fish refer to the frilly, fleshy flaps of skin protruding from its chin.  (The Latin name "barbatus" translates to "bearded.")

Like others in its family, Scorpaenidae, the Bearded Scorpionfish is an ambush predator.  Its strategy is to lie in wait for its prey to come swimming past at close range, and then to spring forth with its mouth wide open to engulf its meal in one big gulp.  In order to do this successfully, it helps to be as inconspicuous as possible.  It helps to be camouflaged.

The scorpionfish usually rests on algae-covered rocks, or among corals and marine plants.  The frills on this guy's chinny-chin-chin are a part of its disguise, helping it to blend in with its usual surroundings.

Despite its elaborate camouflage, the individual in these photos was easy to spot since it was out in the open, resting on a patch of sand.  Hoping I could get a close-up photo of its head, I lay down on the sand, too, and inched toward the fish.  To my delight, my subject did not flinch or flee after the first shot, so -- still on my belly --  I was able to move around carefully and face him to take a head-on shot of his impressive 'beard' at close range.

Bearded Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis, barbatus), Red Sea

The Hawksbill Sea Turtle, a Critically Endangered Species

Hawksbill Sea Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata)

by B. N. Sullivan

This is the Hawksbill Sea Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This turtle species inhabits all tropical and subtropical seas around the world, but its numbers continue to decline.

The IUCN Hawksbill Turtle page notes:

extensive subpopulation declines in all major ocean basins over the last three Hawksbill generations as a result of over-exploitation of adult females and eggs at nesting beaches, degradation of nesting habitats, take of juveniles and adults in foraging areas, incidental mortality relating to marine fisheries, and degradation of marine habitats.

The IUCN estimates that "the overall decline of the species, when considered within the context of three generations, has been in excess of 80%."

While habitat degradation, trafficking in turtle eggs and meat, and incidental catch by marine fisheries threaten all sea turtle species, the Hawksbill population also has suffered due to what is known as the Tortoiseshell trade.  "Tortoiseshell" -- the material used for combs, hair ornaments, and inlays on furniture and other decorative items  -- comes not so much from tortoises, but from the carapaces of Hawksbill Turtles. Tortoiseshell collection and trade has been banned under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) since 1973, yet enforcement in some parts of the world remains lax.

I photographed the Hawksbill Sea Turtle on this page at Thomas Reef in the Tiran Straits of the Red Sea.

More information about Hawksbill Sea Turtles;

• IUCN Red List: Eretmochelys imbricata
• NOAA Fisheries: Hawksbill Turtle
• Sea Turtle Conservancy: Hawksbill Sea Turtle
• National Wildlife Federation: Hawksbill Sea Turtle
• Marine Bio: Hawksbill Sea Turtles

Unspoiled Reef in the Red Sea

Unspoiled reef in the Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

This is the kind of scene that divers' dreams are made of: a pristine reef in a remote location.

We have been asked many times to name our favorite dive destination.  While it's difficult to choose just one location, we would have to include the Brothers Islands in the Red Sea among our top choices.  The remoteness of these two tiny specks, situated about 67 km (about 42 miles) off the eastern coast of Egypt, has helped to keep their lush reefs unspoiled.  The middle-of-nowhere location also attracts many large pelagic fishes of the sort not often seen around near-shore reefs.

The only way to get to the Brothers Islands is via a live-aboard dive boat.  It takes a full day (or overnight) at sea for the boats to reach the Brothers from coastal ports like Hurghada, Safaga or Quseir.  The voyage to the Brothers and back to the coast can be punishing due to rough seas, and dives there can be challenging due to unusually strong currents and choppy surface conditions.  But for experienced divers, the reefs along the near-vertical walls on the flanks of both seamounts (Little Brother and Big Brother) afford some of the most spectacular underwater scenery on the planet.

I photographed this dreamy, tranquil reef scene at Little Brother Island.   We think it illustrates why this location, in our experience, is a contender for Diver Heaven.

A Fish with Camouflaged Eyes

Crocodile Fish (Papilloculiceps longiceps), Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

Many animals in the sea have evolved colors and forms that allow them to blend in with their surroundings. Some animals use their camouflage to hide from predators — and some predators use camouflage to fool their prey.

The critter in the photo above is a Crocodile Fish (Papilloculiceps longiceps), a bottom-dwelling ambush predator from the Red Sea.  The mottled coloring of this fish matches the sandy areas were it likes to lie in wait for its prey (usually other fishes).  Its body shape, including its head, is quite flat. This "low-rise" profile also makes it less noticeable to fishy passers-by.

Sometimes an animal’s eyes are the one feature that will interrupt the camouflage effect and give it away, but these images illustrate how even a critter’s eyes can be somewhat camouflaged. Take a good look at the eyes of the Crocodile Fish and notice the lappets — the small irregular fleshy flaps that partially obscure the eyeballs — a part of its disguise.

Below is a macro image of the eye of a Crocodile Fish who was nice enough to stay very still even when I came in very, very close to take the photo!  The photo is of a different individual than the one in the image at the top of the page, but it is the same species.

Macro photo of eye lappets on a Crocodile Fish

Note: A portion of this article was published previously in Photosynthesis on ScienceBlogs.com.

The Yellowbar Angelfish (Pomacanthus maculosus)

Yellowbar Angelfish (Pomacanthus maculosus), Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan 

If you dive near tropical reefs in the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea, you may encounter the Yellowbar Angelfish (Pomacanthus maculosus).  Often you will see them nibbling on a sponge,  or pecking at corals and algae-covered rocks.  In our experience, they don't seem to be fearful of divers, often swimming right up to have a look at us.  They are known to be territorial, so perhaps they approach divers to judge if they are friend or foe.

The adult of this species, pictured above, grows to a rather large size (for an angelfish!) -- up to about 20 in (50 cm).  The bright yellow patch on their flanks makes them easy to recognize.  Legend has it that the splash of yellow depicts a map of Africa.  That may be a bit of a stretch, but it accounts for the fact that an alternate common name for this species is Map Angelfish.  In any case, the exact shape of the blotch is unique to each fish, rather like a fingerprint.

The individual pictured above was photographed in the Red Sea, near Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Stony Corals in the Red Sea

Red Sea hard corals

by B. N. Sullivan

This is one of my favorite reef photos.  It was taken in the Red Sea at an area of Ras Mohammed known as Shark Observatory Wall.  When I took the photo, it was a sunny day and the water was very clear.  I was not very deep beneath the surface, but I was positioned below the corals. I was shooting up toward the surface with a wide angle lens, using the sun as a back-light for the coral.  Pictured are several species of stony corals common to the Red Sea, of the genera Acropora and Stylophora, and some Millepora (which is actually a Hydrozoan).

Deep Colors: Masked Butterflyfish Pair in the Red Sea

Masked Butterflyfish (Chaetodon semilarvatus) in the Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

The Masked Butterflyfish (Chaetodon semilarvatus) is one of just a few species in the family Chaetodontidae that mates for the long term, thus they are most often seen in pairs.  They live in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

These are brilliantly colored fishes with bright yellow, vertically lined bodies.  They have a distinctive grayish blue eye mask,  the feature for which they are named.  "Semilarvatus" in Latin means "Half-mask."  The species has several other common names, including the Blue-cheek Butterflyfish and the Golden Butterflyfish.

I photographed this pair against a backdrop of colorful Nephtheid soft corals in the Red Sea.  Each fish was approximately 18 cm (7 in) long.

Gotta Be Red Sea!

Shoal of Anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis) swarming over soft corals in the Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

Underwater scenery varies a lot around the world.  Each region has characteristic features and creatures that immediately identify it and set it apart from other areas in the mind of the well-traveled diver.  Just as kelp forests say "California coast" and reef scenes with purple sea fans and yellow-tailed snappers must surely be Caribbean, a photo like the one above immediately brings to mind the Red Sea.

Other locations in the Indo-Pacific region have Anthias, those delightful little goldfish look-alikes, but nowhere else we've been seems to have them in such profusion.  Shoals of Anthias are as ubiquitous in the Red Sea as the soft corals.

In case you'd like to have a better idea of what the individuals of this species look like, here are links to specimen photos from Dr. Jack Randall's collection at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu:

• Pseudanthias squamipinnus, male
• Pseudanthias squamipinnis, female

Cute Juvenile Whitetip Reef Shark

Juvenile Whitetip Reef Shark in the Red Sea

by B. N. Sullivan

Yes, sometimes sharks can be cute.   Just take a look at this shy juvenile Whitetip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus), less than two feet long,  trying its best  to hide beneath a table coral.  Tell me you don't feel like patting it on the head!

I photographed this youngster in the Red Sea at Abu Kifan reef, near Safaga, Egypt.  I only managed this one shot of the little shark before it zoomed out of its hiding place and hurried away.  I guess it was spooked by the camera flash.  We swam down the reef to look for it, but we never saw it again.

At Peace in the Deep Blue

Diver swimming along a deep wall in the Red Sea

Looking through some old underwater photos, I came across the evocative image above. The photo had been squirreled away for years, but the moment I looked at it  memories of the peace and serenity of deep dives flooded my mind.  It's quiet down there in the deep blue.

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?

by B. N. Sullivan

Take a look at the photos below. What's your guess: animal, vegetable or mineral?

At first glance they look like some kind of vegetable, don't they? Perhaps cauliflower or broccoli come to mind?

In fact, the correct answer is "animal."  The images above are macro photos of a type of soft coral in the genus Dendronephthya.  The common name for this variety is "Broccoli Coral," and you can see why that is so.

Although this kind of coral can resemble broccoli in appearance, it definitely is not a plant.  It is a colony of animals -- the coral polyps. The polyps arrange themselves in bundles at the ends of the rubbery stalks. Each polyp has exactly eight short, feathery tentacles. In order to feed, the polyps open and close their little tentacles, grabbing tiny nutrient particles that are suspended in the water.

This feeding activity happens mostly at night.  During daylight hours, the polyps retract into tiny bundles, as you see in these photos.

The final photo, below, shows what the entire colony looks like.  All of these photos were taken in the Red Sea, but this species also can be found elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region.

Mushroom corals: Solitary corals of the Fungiidae family

by B. N. Sullivan

Do the images on this page remind you of mushrooms?  The corals pictured here belong to the Fungiidae family.  Note that the family name has the same word root as the English word 'fungus', and these corals are known by the common name Mushroom Corals.

Although the appearance of these corals may look similar to the underside of a mushroom cap, the resemblance stops there.  These are stony corals; they are not soft.

While most hard coral species live as colonies of  polyps that aggregate and form calcareous structures, most species of corals in the Fungiidae family live as solitary corals rather than as colonies.  In addition to being solitary, most of the corals in this family are free-living -- that is, they are not attached to the substrate.

The photos on this page show two examples of solitary, free-living corals from the Fungiidae family.  Both of these are Indo-Pacific species, widely distributed across the region from the Red Sea in the west, to the islands of the central Pacific.  Both of the corals shown here were photographed in Hawaii.

The image near the top of this page is Fungia scutaria, the most common mushroom coral in Hawaiian waters.  F. scutaria also is the largest of the mushroom corals found in Hawaii.  It typically grows into an oblong or oval shape that can reach a size of about seven inches (18 cm) in length, although most of the individuals we have seen are about half that size.

The second photo shows Cycloseris vaughani, a smaller mushroom coral species.  Cycloseris corals are more circular or discoid in shape.  Adults of this species grow to a diameter of about two inches (5 cm).

Both of these species begin the post-larval stage of their lives attached to the substrate by a stem-like structure.  As the juveniles mature and take on their adult form, the stem gradually dissolves, and they become free-living adults.

Mushroom corals usually are found in sandy areas near the base of stands of reef-building corals, and on rubble slopes at  the outer edges of fringing reefs.  They are found less frequently in shallow areas where they would be subject to being tumbled about by waves and surge.  They prefer more sheltered environments.

Mushroom corals are known to feed on plankton and the metabolic by-products of the symbiotic algae that live in their tissues, but a team of Israeli scientists carrying out a reef survey in the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea) recently witnessed mushroom corals feeding on -- of all things -- rather large jellyfish!  They documented the species Fungia scruposa feeding on a Moon Jelly (Aurelia aurita). You can read about this amazing discovery in this article (with photos) published by the BBC:  Predatory coral eats jellyfish.

See also: Alamaru, A, et al. (2009). Opportunistic feeding by the fungiid coral Fungia scruposa on the moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita. Coral Reefs. DOI: 10.1007/s00338-009-0507-7

Soft corals on Woodhouse Reef

by B. N. Sullivan

After posting the previous article about the container ship that ran aground on Woodhouse Reef in the Tiran Straits, I decided to search our image archive for photos I had taken at Woodhouse that might show the beauty of the reef prior to the recent accident.  In particular, I was looking for a 'reefscape' image, rather than a shot of an individual creature.  I came across the above image of assorted soft corals on slope of  the reef, photographed a number of years ago.  My notes did not specify the exact location on Woodhouse, so I can't say it is the spot where the ship damaged the reef.

While browsing through our underwater photos from the four  Tiran reefs, I noticed that most of the photos were from Jackson reef and Gordon reef, with fewer from Thomas reef and the fewest from Woodhouse.  How could that be?  A quick check of our dive logs confirmed that among the Tiran reefs, we have dived on Woodhouse least often.  I also noted that most of our dives at Woodhouse were done as one-way drift dives, riding the tidal current along a face of the reef slope.  That fact may account for the relatively small number of images from Woodhouse in our Red Sea photo archive.  During drift dives on tidal currents, there are fewer opportunities to pause to take photos.

Maybe we need to do a return trip to the Red Sea, just to take more photos on Woodhouse reef? (Sounds like a mission!)

Container ship damages Woodhouse Reef in the Tiran Straits

by B. N. Sullivan

Regular readers of The Right Blue surely must know by now that one of our favorite places in the world to dive is the Red Sea.  We lived and worked in the eastern Mediterranean region for many years, and during that time, we went to the Red Sea frequently for dive breaks.  When we had the time to do so, we would spend a week or more on a live-aboard dive safari boat.  More frequently, we stayed at Sharm el-Sheikh and used day-boat charters to dive the reefs of the southern Sinai peninsula and the Straits of Tiran.

During that period of time, we visited the area so frequently that we came to know the South Sinai and Tiran dive sites as well as we know our reefs back at home.  Those reefs are incredibly lush, teeming with life -- and very photogenic.  Some of my best underwater photos were shot in the northern Red Sea.  It's been a few years since our last visit there, but our fond memories of the area have not dimmed.

All of  those reefs happen to be situated in or near very busy commercial shipping lanes.  The Tiran Straits separate the Gulf of Aqaba from the rest of the Red Sea.  All ship traffic heading to or from the busy ports of Eilat, Israel, and Aqaba, Jordan must thread their way around the reefs as they pass through that narrow passage between the coasts of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  This week we learned that Woodhouse Reef, one of the four spectacular reefs in the Straits of Tiran, was seriously damaged when a 40,000 ton container ship ran aground on it on December 31, 2009.  The news made our hearts ache.

Underwater cameraman Tom Osborn dived at Woodhouse a few days after the ship ran aground there and filmed the damage.  In an article about the accident on the British Web site Dive Magazine, Tom Osborn relates what he saw:

"All of the reef in the area of the collision has been destroyed. It resembles a chalk quarry with fresh white lumps of rock scattered everywhere.

"You can see underwater that large sections of the container's hull has been crushed and sliced open from the force of the impact. As the ship smashed into the reef, she damaged huge chunks of the reef plate near the surface.

"An area approximately 30m wide and 20m long has tumbled away in sections down the steep slope of Woodhouse Reef like an avalanche, destroying any living coral below to a depth of at least 45m. At 35m you can clearly see a large slab of reef plate that used to be near the surface."

Here is a sample of the video shot by Tom Osborn that shows some of the devastating damage to Woodhouse Reef:

If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.

The Right Blue: Perennial Favorites

by B. N. Sullivan

It's always interesting to study traffic reports for The Right Blue to see which articles and photos earn the most attention -- not just when we first post them, but over time.  There have been some we just knew would be winners, while other winners of the blog post popularity contest have been complete surprises.

In the previous post we reviewed which articles published in 2009 were the most popular, based on number of visits to each.  We'd like to note, however, that the five most popular posts on The Right Blue during the past year were not posted during 2009; they were older articles, dating back as far as August of 2007 (just a month after The Right Blue was launched).

In addition to showcasing our underwater photos, we've always had the goal of sharing what we have learned about the ocean and its inhabitants with readers of The Right Blue.  Knowing that there is a lot of junk information out there on the Web, I admit I am more than a little bit obsessive about presenting factually correct information, especially when I write about marine life.  Some of our 'creature features' are time consuming to prepare, but the reward is that information-heavy articles on The Right Blue almost always end up on the first page of search engine results, and remain there.  It's a nice indicator that what we produce is of value, and also has staying power.

With that said, here are the five posts on The Right Blue that were viewed most often during 2009:

1. Fire Coral: Look, but do not touch, posted in November of 2007
2. The Cave Where Turtles Die , posted in June of 2008
3. Bubble Coral Plus, posted in May of 2008
4. Dotted Sea Slug from the Mediterranean, posted in October of 2008
5. Why is the sea blue?, posted in August of 2007

About the photo: I photographed this colony of fire coral (Millepora dichotoma) in the Red Sea at a dive site called 'Jackfish Alley', near the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula.  This fire coral species is very common in the Red Sea.

Bet you can't eat the whole thing!

What: A Striped Pajama nudibranch (Chromodoris quadricolor) browsing on a brightly colored sponge (Negombata sp.), which is the favorite food of this nudibranch species.

Where: I photographed this nudibranch in the Red Sea, at Tiran Island.

Nudibranchs in The Right Blue

Nudibranchs-- also called sea slugs -- are marine gastropod molluscs (snails) that do not have a shell. (The name 'nudibranch' means bare gills.)  Most tropical nudibranchs are small and brightly colored, so they are a popular  subject for underwater macro photography.

Here is a directory of articles about nudibranchs in The Right Blue:

• Trailing behavior in Risbecia nudibranchs (Risbecia pulchella)- Sep. 1, 2008
• Exotic Underwater Nudies - The Spanish Dancer (Hexabranchus sanguineas)- Sep. 18, 2008
• Hawaii's Gold Lace Nudibranch (Halgerda terramtuentis) - Sep. 29, 2008
• The Blue Dragon, a Solar-Powered Nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina) - Oct. 12, 2008
• Dotted Sea Slug from the Mediterranean (Peltodoris atromaculata) - Oct. 25, 2008
• The Blue Sphinx nudibranch (Phyllidiopsis sphingis) - Mar. 9, 2009
• How do critters get their scientific names, and what do they mean? - June 13, 2009
• All set for a pajama party on the reef? (Chromodoris quadricolor) - June 13, 2009
• Purple sea slug (Hypselodoris apolegma) - Apr. 15, 2010

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Here is a directory of nudibranch photos on The Right Blue, sorted alphabetically by family name and species name:

Asteronotidae

• Gold Lace nudibranch (Halgerda terramtuentis), Hawaiian endemic species, two macro photos - Pacific: Puako, Hawaii

Chromodorididae

• Coi nudibranch (Chromodoris coi), macro photo - Celebes Sea: Pulau Sipadan
• Striped Pajama nudibranch (Chromodoris quadricolor), macro photo - Red Sea: Egypt
• Striped Pajama nudibranch (Chromodoris quadricolor), feeding on sponge - Red Sea: Egypt
• Vibrating nudibranch (Chromodoris vibrata) - Pacific: Puako, Hawaii
• Purple sea slug (Hypselodoris apolegma), macro photo - Celebes Sea: North Sulawesi
• Pair of Risbecia nudibranchss (Risbecia pulchella) - Red Sea: Ras Mohammed, Egypt

Discodorididae

• Dotted Sea Slug (Peltodoris atromaculata), three macro photos, incl. feeding behavior - Aegean Sea: Greece

Hexabranchidae

• Spanish Dancer (Hexabranchus sanguineus), largest nudibranch species in the world - Red Sea: Gordon Reef
• Spanish Dancer egg mass rosettes (Hexabranchus sanguineus), bottom of page - Celebes Sea: Bunaken Island, Indonesia

Phyllidiidae

• Blue Sphinx nudibranch (Phyllidiopsis sphingis) - Pacific: Puako, Hawaii

Pteraeolidiidae

• Blue Dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina), two macro photos - Celebes Sea: Malaysia and Indonesia

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Nudibranch video:

• Spanish Dancer (Hexabranchus sanguineus), shows how the creature 'swims'

Oh, Baby! A juvenile Scorpionfish

by B. N. Sullivan

See that little fishie in the photo at right?  It's a juvenile scorpionfish -- species unknown.


We came across this little guy in the Red Sea during a night dive at a place called Tiran Island,   in the Straits of Tiran.  (For those of you who may be a bit foggy on Red  Sea geography, the narrow body of water that separates Egypt's Sinai Peninsula from Saudi Arabia is known as the Straits of Tiran. That is also where the Gulf of Aqaba joins the rest of the Red Sea.)


We were there to photograph other critters -- which we did --  but once we spotted this little baby, it became the highlight of our dive.  I was kneeling on the sand, fiddling with camera settings.  Jerry shined his light onto my camera so that I could see what I was doing.  In the periphery of the pool of light, we saw something move.  That something was partially covered with sand, but it had some colorful bits sticking out of it.  It looked a little bedraggled, but we recognized that it was a tiny fish.  Those colorful bits turned out to be its tail and pectoral fins.  

This next photo shows how the little fish looked when we first saw it lying on the sand.  Not quite two inches (5 cm) long, we knew it was some kind of fish, and that it probably was a juvenile.  But a juvenile what??


Jerry slid his gloved hand under the little critter, picked it up,  and held it out to me.  We shined our lights on it to get a better look, when all of a sudden it wiggled, then fluttered, launching itself from the palm of Jerry's hand into the water column like a fledgling bird leaving its nest.


Luckily, I was able to snap a few frames of the fish as it glided back down to the sand (see first photo).  By this time we were both quite sure it was some kind of scorpionfish, based on its overall shape, but to this day we do not know which species.


Our best guess is that it is a baby Bearded Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis barbatus), a species that is plentiful in that area of the Red Sea.  The adults have an overall shape similar to the juvenile we saw and photographed that night.  We have shown the photos of the juvenile to a number of people who know something about Red Sea fishes, but so far no one has been able to identify it with certainty.   If any readers of The Right Blue happen to know the identity of this juvenile, please do let us know.


For reference, here is a photo of an adult Bearded Scorpionfish from the Red Sea.  This specimen was photographed in the central Red Sea at Little Brother (Brothers Islands), where it was trying its best to blend into the reef scenery.

Goatfish: Tropical bottom-dwellers

by B. N. Sullivan

Take a close look at the photo on this page, and you can understand how this fish family acquired the common name Goatfish.  Members of this family (Mullidae) all sport appendages on their chins that look like very fat whiskers.  As the story goes, these 'whiskers' suggest a billy-goat's beard.

Those appendages are called barbels, and they are a kind of sensory organ.  They sense chemical 'smells' and a goatfish uses its barbels to help it locate a meal.

Goatfish are bottom-dwellers.  They like sandy areas, where they can rummage in the sediment for tasty morsels to eat.  They eat small crustaceans, worms,  snails -- just about any little invertebrate they can find under the surface of the sand.  Some goatfish species also eat tiny fishes; we have seen goatfish use their barbels to nudge little fishies out of their hiding places in reef crevices and then gulp them right down.

Most goatfish species live in relatively shallow water, so it is not uncommon for snorkelers to spot them.  During the day, goatfish often hang out in small groups in sandy areas at the edges of coral reefs, where you might see them lying on the bottom.  Most of their feeding activity takes place at night, but sometimes you might see some goatfish nosing around, looking for food during daylight hours.

Goatfish are quite adept at changing their coloration.  Most assume one color pattern while at rest, and another when swimming.  There are some that even sport a specific color pattern just for feeding!

The fish in the photo on this page is called Forsskal's Goatfish (Parupeneus forsskali), common in the Red Sea.  It is solid-colored during the day, with a very dark stripe on each side that runs the length from its nose, through its eye, and almost to the base of its tail.  At night, while the fish is feeding, the dark stripe becomes blotchy, and the body of the fish is mottled rather than solid.  The photo was taken during a night dive at a reef near Safaga, Egypt. [Click on the photo to enlarge.]

In case you are wondering if these are edible fish, yes, they are.  We've never eaten goatfish, but we have seen some for sale at fish markets in several countries, particularly in Asia. In fact, some of the larger goatfish species look like they could be quite meaty.  If any of our readers have dined on goatfish, we would be interested to know how they tasted, so do tell us.

All set for a pajama party on the reef?

by B. N. Sullivan

The common name for this little creature is Striped Pajama Nudibranch. Its scientific name is Chromodoris quadricolor. These nudies are small -- less than two inches (5 cm) in length -- but their bright colors make them easy to spot.

This species is very common in the Red Sea. In fact it is probably safe to say that this is the nudibranch seen most frequently by Red Sea divers. C. quadricolor also is found elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region. They are sponge eaters.

Those two orange structures sticking up from the forward end of the creature are its rhinophores - sensory organs that help it navigate and find food. The rhinophores sense chemical molecules in the water similarly to how we sense smells in the air.

The bunch of feathery-looking things protruding from the tail end of the nudibranch are its gills, used for respiration. The gills can be retracted into a tiny pouch on the nudibranch's back. If you see one of these guys and it appears to have no gills, look for a little bump where the gills should be. That's where they are hidden.

Like many of its colorful cousins of the same genus, the Striped Pajama Nudibranch is a favorite photo subject for underwater macro photographers. No surprise there: it is colorful, photogenic -- and like most snails, it doesn't move very quickly. (Photographers are particularly fond of brightly colored critters that will hold still long enough to focus the lens!)

I photographed the individual on this page in the Red Sea at a place called Shark Bay, which is not far from Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. [Click on the photo to enlarge.]