Giant Frogfish (technically Anglerfish) - 10 inches high and 12 inches long - trying to swim, but not very coordinated.
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Giant Frogfish (technically Anglerfish) - 10 inches high and 12 inches long. Frogfish change color to match their surroundings (or sometimes turn a dramatically different color to look like a lump of sponge), and rely on their prey (fish that swim by) not to notice them until they inhale them.
Another fish that relies on camouflage is Scorpionfish. This is a little (5-inches long) Leaf Scorpionfish, which sways back and forth in the current like a leaf, but is always ready to gulp down littler fishes that swim close to its mouth.
A much larger (and more common) Tassled Scorpionfish - about 12 inches long - lies atop the reef (across the bottom of this photo, facing left). Their name is derived from the fact that they have sharp, painful spines along the top of their body.
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Tassled Scorpionfish - side detail
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A different Tassled Scorpionfish, whose color reflects different (browner) surroundings.
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This Lizardfish (10 inches long) also depends on camouflage for protection against bigger predators and so potential prey don't notice it.
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Urchin Clingfish (2 inches)
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Urchin Clingfish (2 inches)
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Ring-tailed Cardinalfish holding eggs in its mouth (until they hatch) to protect them.
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Ring-tailed Cardinalfish with eggs in its mouth...not particularly happy with me.
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Butterflyfish (5 inches long)
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Brown-banded Butterflyfish (5 inches long). The spot near the tail is to make predators think that is their eye/head, so that if it bites them there, they just lose part of their tail, not their head.
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Yellow Damselfish with a mated pair of Masked Bannerfishes
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Salt-water Catfishes, which when younger are sometimes seen in schools of hundreds of 1-3 inch fish, are in this case older and bigger, with this school only having a dozen 8-inch fish. They use their "whiskers" to stir up sand to uncover things to eat.
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Pinktail Triggerfish (8-10 inches)
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Red Snapper (16-inch) and Yellow-banded Sweetlips (12-inch)
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Large Jack (18 inches long)
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Scrawled Filefish (18 inches long)
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Blackspotted Puffer (10 inches)
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Whitespotted Puffer (8 inches)
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Map Puffer (18 inches) with Cleaner Wrasse (2 inches) lower left
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Cleaning Station - This 2-foot Map Pufferfish is being "cleaned" by a little 2-inch Cleaner Wrasse (lower left), which picks parasites off other fish. Note the pufferfish's beak-like mouth, which it uses to eat hard corals. The little white bubble-like things on the ceiling above him are Tunicates (aka Sea Squirts).
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Hawksbill Turtle lying on Table Coral
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Green Turtle in the middle of Hard Corals at Apo Island
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Gary watches Hawksbill Turtle on wall
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Hawksbill Turtle glides over reef at Apo Island
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A Hawksbill Turtle rests, while two free-loading Remoras (aka Sharksuckers) hang on to catch little bits of food that might float free when the turtle eats coral or sponges. I wonder if the presence of such large remoras on this turtle might be the result of declining shark populations (due to Asian shark-finning fleets that are decimating sharks world-wide for shark-fin soup).
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3-in-1 photo at Apo Island - Adrian and Luke watch an "airborne" Hawksbill turtle (and another on the reef closer to them), but can't see the big Green Turtle with two Remoras near to me.
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Well fed - this Hawksbill Turtle looking for a place to rest looks VERY well fed (note how thick his shell is), not surprising considering the healthy reef on which he can feed at Apo Island.
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A young turtle relaxes in soft corals while deciding whether to eat some more or go back to the surface for another breath of air.
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Coming in for a landing - this Hawksbill Turtle looks for a place to settle down - either for a nap or a meal.
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The young Hawksbill Turtle awkwardly balanced between corals in the foreground actually dropped right on top of a bigger, older Hawskbill, which decided to move to a less crowded location.
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Gary shooting a portrait of a Hawksbill Turtle on the reef at Apo Island
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A Hawksbill Turtle checks out the divers above
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Banded Seasnake (3 ft long, but diameter of your thumb) - extremely poisonous, but NOT dangerous because they are so docile/mellow (and because their tiny mouths would have a hard time biting a human anyway).
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Banded Seasnake (3 ft long, but diameter of your thumb) - identifiable as seasnakes by their tails, which are a flat, vertical paddle shape. Although extremely poisonous, but NOT dangerous because they are so docile/mellow.
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A large (4-inches long) Nudibranch
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Tiny (1/2 inch long) Nudibranch
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Nudibranch (2 inches long)
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Nudibranch (1 inch long) with bluish Tunicate (aka sea squirt)
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Blue Dragon Nudibranch (5 inches long)
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1-inch tall Tunicates (aka "sea squirts") are simple animals that suck water in one hole, filter nutrients/plankton out of it, and expel it through the other hole.
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