Category: marine and aquatic life

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 3, 2025 • 8:15 am

Our stalwart readers have come through with several batches of photos, so we’re good to go for about a week.

Today’s contribution comes from UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson, also a Hero of Intellectual Freedom. Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

In Northern California, April blew in the way March is supposed to, like a lion, with gusting winds and high surf.

The first set of creatures below have a lovely common name: by-the-wind sailors, and a mellifluous scientific name: Velella velella.   Each mini-sailboat is actually a colony of hydroids.     They’re blown willy-nilly across the surface of the sea, and when the winds and tides hit just right, they wash up onshore in incredible numbers.  The first picture is the beach so covered with them it looked like it had snowed.  The second is a closer-up picture of a cluster of them.  The third and fourth show first a single “boat” floating right-side up, with the sail sticking up perpendicular to the surface, and then a few upside down, showing the tentacles which usually hang underneath.  Velella velella are related to Portuguese men o’ war, but their tentacles don’t sting (much- at least not for humans).

Both Velella velella and Portuguese men o’ war have nudibranch predators, including Fiona pinnata and Glaucus atlanticus (blue dragon).  The spectacular blue dragon seems to be always blue, and Fiona pinnata can take on the beautiful blue of its prey. Glaucus atlanticus  concentrates the (painful) venom of the Portuguese man o’ war  and reportedly is excruciatingly painful to the touch.  Luckily the two really venomous species need warmer water than we have in Northern California.

Velella velella (by-the-wind sailor):

Epiactis prolifera (brooding anemone) This species broods its young on the outside of its column. The babies are the cream-colored flower-like things:

Epiactis prolifera again- in this one, the kids seem to have taken over the place, as kids are wont to do:

Nucella ostrina (Striped dogwinkle). These usually have boring grey and white strips, but every once in a while they’re this spectacular orange. Also I like the name “dogwinkle”:

Doto amyra (nudibranch):

Paradialychone ecaudata (another species of feather duster worm). These just appear as a fuzz on the bottom of the pools, until you look at them with some magnification:

Camera info:  Mostly Olympus TG-7 in microscope mode, pictures taken from above the water.

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 8, 2025 • 8:30 am

Today we have a lovely batch of tidepool organisms taken by UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson, who is also a Hero of Intellectual Freedom.  Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

More tidepool pictures from Dillon Beach, CA.   The best tidepooling season is just getting underway.  There are some big tides at the end of April, and they’ll recur through July, with the low tides at ghastly hours of the morning.    These pictures from March were from less painful times of day.   There are a few species I’ve posted before, but they had some especially photogenic representatives this month.

Several of these animals are really (really) tiny, and some are both tiny and fast, so some of the pictures aren’t perfect, but I think they’re interesting creatures.

Phidiana hiltoni (nudibranch).   Posted before, but this one was a beauty:

Genus Ophiopholis (brittle star). Distinguishing species in this genus requires better pictures than this one.  This tiny- about an inch tip to tip- brittle star was on the underside of a rock.    These move fast and gracefully.    They’re in the same phylum as big ochre stars, the sea urchins (see the next two pictures) and sea cucumbers:

Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (purple sea urchin). I know, it’s green, but the juveniles start green and then turn purple.    The next picture shows its mouth on the underside:

Sea urchin mouth:

Family Sabellidae (feather duster worm). Another very tiny creature, visible to the naked eye as just a slight pink fuzz.   This marine worm lives in a tube of its own creation,  and retracts into the tube in a flash if disturbed.  The dark dots at the base of the “feathers” are eyes:

Caesia fossata (eggs from this snail).

Margarites pupillus (tentative ID) I liked the bit of opalescence on the shell:


Coryphella trilineata (nudibranch). Another one I’ve posted before, posing for the camera:

Genus Gnathopleustes (amphipod). Yet another tiny guy.    I’ve found just a few of these, a speck of bright color in the seaweed:

Mopalia acuta (chiton).   The Mopalia species can be hard to distinguish from photos, so this ID should be taken with a grain of salt.    Chitons usually cling to a rock like a limpet, but they can curl into a ball like a roly-poly to protect their vulnerable body if they get dislodged:

Camera info:  Mostly Olympus TG-7, in microscope mode, pictures taken from above the water.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 2, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today we have a second batch of underwater photos from reader Peter Klaver (first batch here). Today we have underwater wildlife (corals). Peter’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here is the second batch of photos from scuba diving around San Pedro, Belize earlier this month.

Apart from many animals, the coral reefs there also have a rich abundance of underwater vegetation.

Most of the sea floor in the reefs is covered with various kinds of soft corals.

There are also some hard corals:

. . . including brain corals:

. . .And there are various cylindrical or tubular species whose names I don’t know.

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 2, 2024 • 8:30 am

Today’s photos are from California tidepools and were taken by UC Davis math professor Abigail Thompson, a recognized “hero of intellectual freedom.” Abby’s notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

September-October tidepools (Northern California).

September and October tides are not as extreme as the tides of midsummer, and by mid-October the lowest tides occur after sunset, which altogether makes finding creatures and taking pictures a bit more challenging.  As usual I got help with some of the IDs from people on inaturalist.

Phyllocomus hiltoni: this Doctor-Suessian marine worm washed up on the beach in a clump of eelgrass.    It was tiny; the photo is through a microscope.     I already thought it was amazing, but then (see the next picture) as a bonus it also sprouted tentacles:

Phyllocomus hiltoni with frills!

Porychthis notatus: these tiny fish showed up when I turned over a rock. They were very small, I assume newly-hatched:

Porychthis notatus: close-up:

Anthopleura sola (starburst anemone), one of the more spectacular sea anemones:

Phragmatopoma californica (California sandcastle worm): These worms often live in groups and form large conglomerations of the tubes they live in (the “sandcastles”).    The black shell-like thing on the left is the worm’s operculum, like a lid to close off the top of the tube when the worm withdraws.  The next picture is a close-up of the operculum:

Operculum close-up:

Triopha maculata: nudibranch; this one looks like he’s eating the pink bryozoan, but he may just be passing over it, I’m not sure what this species eats (nudibranchs are very picky eaters):

Epiactis prolifera (brooding anemone: probably): there are a few species of Epiactis sea anemones along the California coast; prolifera is the most common:

Halosydna brevisetosa: Eighteen-scaled worm, found on the underside of a rock.   There are 18 pairs of scales, with a close-up of them in the next picture.

Close-up of scales:

Low tide on this day was about an hour after sunset, which is a lovely time to be out on the beach:

Camera info:  Mostly Olympus TG-7, in microscope mode, pictures taken from above the water.  The first picture was taken with my iphone through the eyepiece of a microscope.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 17, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today’s batch of marine-life photos comes from math professor Abigail Thompson at UC Davis. We’ve met her before (in 2018) when she was widely and publicly demonized for simply writing a piece criticizing diversity statements (see this post, which is missing many links). But today we see her photographic skills with pictures of nudibranchs and other marine invertebrates. As she says, “I spend a lot of time up to my knees in cold water.”  Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them. And remember that nudibranchs are molluscs.

These are all from the same 1-mile stretch of Northern California coastline during the past year.   The pictures are mostly  taken from above the water, at low tide.  Most are of sea-slugs, beautiful animals with a terrible (common) name (although nudibranch sounds a bit better), with some ID help from inaturalist.   Lots more pictures here or at inaturalist.

Ectopleura marina A hydroid, a (very small) animal that just stays put:

Acanthodoris rhodoceras, nudibranch:

Aeolidia loui, nudibranch:

Polycera atra, nudibranch:

Phidiana hiltoni, nudibranch:

Eurylepta californica, a species of marine flatworm:

Triopha catalinae, nudibranch:

Crassadoma gigantea,  actually, a not-very-big scallop.   The black dots are eyes:

Epactis handi, a fairly rare (and beautiful) anemone:

Doto kya (probably), nudibranch:

Equipment: One photo was with an iPhone through a microscope, but the rest were taken with an Olympus TG-6 or -7, the almost-indestructible tidepoolers favorite, with a sensational macro setting (I did manage to destroy the TG-6, but it took real effort).

Note: Three new photos added by readers’ request:

Coast-in-a-fog; that’s a deer in the middle.   They come down to the water at night (for salt?) so if you’re out very early in the morning you see them there:

View towards Pt. Reyes from the top of a ridge:

 I think those are pelicans on top of the rocks, at sunset:

A Dumbo octopus

June 17, 2023 • 2:19 pm

There are 17 species in the genus Grimpoteuthis, or “Dumbo octopus”, and you can see where the name comes from in the short video below. It was just posted a few days ago (this species is in the deep ocean), and here are the YouTube notes:

Our Corps of Exploration spotted this absolutely adorable pale orange dumbo octopus surrounded by marine snow around 1,400 meters deep while diving on the summit of “Guyot 10” in the waters of the Pacific Remote Islands. Don’t let its Disney-like appearance fool you; these octopuses (Grimpoteuthis spp) are actually predators! They propel themselves through the water using those famous ear-shaped fins to find food, then gobble their prey up whole, feasting on a plethora of deep sea critters such as copepods, isopods, bristle worms, and amphipods. Learn more about this expedition funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute: https://nautiluslive.org/cruise/na149

And from Wikipedia:

The name “dumbo” originates from their resemblance to the title character of Disney‘s 1941 film Dumbo, having a prominent ear-like fin which extends from the mantle above each eye. There are 17 species recognized in the genus. Prey include crustaceans, bivalves, worms and copepods. The average life span of various Grimpoteuthis species is 3 to 5 years.

Here’s a shot of Dumbo (who could fly with his ears) from the original movie, and I’ve put the trailer below it”

From IMDb

Remember this?

 

Winners, 2022 underwater photography contest

February 5, 2023 • 1:10 pm

There are all kinds of photography contests, but this one, the Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest, has produced some of the best images I’ve seen.  You can see the winners by going to the link in the previous sentence and scrolling down.

Alternatively, The Atlantic (click screenshot below) has a summary along with short narratives by the photographers.

I’ll show a few of my favorites; be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them.

Drifter. Honorable Mention, Nudibranchs. © Talia Greis / Ocean Art

Greis: “Almost every year, the coastal shores of Sydney, Australia, receive an influx of blue drifters (also referred to as the ‘Blue Fleet’), which consist of bluebottles, blue buttons, and the infamous Blue Dragon (more commonly referred to as the Glaucus). This magnificent critter is an organism that relies on the wind and ocean currents to carry it around, which sometimes results in heavy storms casting it ashore. The Glaucus is considered to be a type of pelagic nudibranch that devours bluebottles and stores their stinging agents as defense against predators.”

JAC: This is a nudibranch, a shell-less mollusc, Glaucus atlanticus.

Mobula Munkiana. Honorable Mention, Wide Angle. © Adam Martin / Ocean Art

Martin: ” aggregate in large schools off the coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico, each spring, during a period thought to be mating and pupping season. While motoring offshore for a week, our search was guided by breaching rays on the horizon. After many attempts to locate the rays and quietly enter the water, I was able to capture a clean image of this large school.”

JAC: The correct binomial is Mobula munkiana without a capital letter in the second word. It’s also know as the Munk’s devil ray.

Wunderpus. 2nd Place, Compact Macro. © Regie Casia / Ocean Art

Casia: “During a blackwater dive, shot at 25 meters deep over about 1,000 meters of water, we waited for the vertical migration of deep-water creatures.” Photographed in Janao Bay near Anilao, Philippines.

JAC: This appears to be Wunderpus photogenicus (what a great name!), a mimetic octopus.

The Eye. Honorable Mention, Macro. © Kat Zhou / Ocean Art

Zhou: “This photo depicts a close-up look at the eye of a nurse shark and was taken on a night dive off the coast of Bimini in the Bahamas.”

The Hunt. 2nd Place, Wide Angle. © Daniel Nicholson / Ocean Art

Nicholson: “A grey reef shark parts the tide of bait fish. In a very rare occurrence, a large shiver of sharks had herded this school of bait fish into the shallow passageways of the Ningaloo Reef in Australia. With the fish trapped here, nearly a hundred sharks spent hours in a feeding frenzy.”

h/t: Barry