Coral etc

Here's a miscellaneous assortment of my remaining diving photos, starting with Christmas Tree worms which I always like. Each pair of "christmas trees" is one worm.

The "trees" are used for feeding and also for respiration. The worm itself lives in a tube inside the coral and will withdraw into the tube if disturbed. I realized afterwards that these next ones were on what I think is Fire Coral. I would have been sorry if I'd brushed up against it while I was focused on photography.

Social Feather Duster worms are somewhat similar but live in groups.

Encrusting Gorgonians look similar but are actually a soft coral rather than a worm.

There are a large variety of corals, soft and hard. The shallow part of the reef was not in great shape, but there was still quite a lot of coral, and deeper the coral seemed in better shape. I wasn't sure if this was a coral or an anemone, but according to iNaturalist it's a Pillar Coral.

Brain Coral was quite common.

I only saw this one Cactus Coral. I've seen it other places and remember its distinctive pattern.

I'm not sure what kind of coral this one is.

There was quite a large area of this healthy looking lettuce coral.

Staghorn coral is one of the faster growing corals. It used to be one of the most common corals but much has been wiped out from a variety of causes. I didn't see a lot of it, but there were several areas where they were growing it on ropes, presumably to "plant" on the reef.

A few more of the variety of corals:

There were also a variety of sponges. Sponges are primitive animals that don't move and don't have complex nervous or digestive systems. They are simple filter feeders.

Apparently this Stinker Sponge smells if taken out of the water, hence its name.

There weren't as many of these vase sponges as we've seen other places.

Green Finger Sponge was a new one to me. When I looked at the photo zoomed in on the computer I saw there was a brittle start on it.

Orange Icing Sponge (the orange part) grows symbiotically with coral.

Sea Cucumbers and Crinoids are related to sea stars and urchins, although the five-fold symmetry is less obvious.

Sea anemones aren't common here but I saw a couple of these Branching Anemones.

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Crustaceans

Crustaceans (literally "with shells") are a large group of mostly aquatic invertebrates, including shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Our first dive site at Akumel was called Lobster Condos but they warned us we probably wouldn't see any lobsters. Of course, that meant we saw a number of them, both on that dive and on other dives. Most of them were Caribbean Spiny Lobsters. If you see a live lobster up close they really are bizarre looking creatures. (Crustaceans are a kind of Arthropod, as are insects and spiders. Think about that next time you're eating lobster.)

On our deeper dives we saw more barrel sponges. I always like to look inside them. Usually there's nothing there, but occasionally something will be hiding inside. I poked my head over the top of this one and was a bit surprised to have a big lobster waving its antennae at me.

The other kind of lobster we saw were the Spotted Spiny Lobsters. They were smaller but I liked their coloring.

We saw Banded Coral Shrimp a few times but they tend to hide in places where they are hard to photograph. All you see are their antennae poking out. Pederson Cleaner Shrimp are often together with Corkscrew Anemones. Like with clownfish, the anemone protects the shrimp and in return the shrimp's waste is a source of food to the anemone.

I just happened to see this Yellowline Arrow Crab move when I went by. Otherwise I wouldn't have spotted it.

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Fish

The most common fish we saw while diving were the little (5 cm, 2 in) Caribbean Sharpnose Puffer. They didn't form schools, there were just individual fish everywhere. Some of them seemed quite curious and would swim right up to you. Of course, when you tried to photograph them they would not sit still. They have quite fancy coloring if you see them up close.

Stoplight Parrotfish were also quite common. The females and males have quite different coloring - easily confused as two different kinds of fish. The interesting part is that they start out female and change to male when they get older. Here are the two different colors:

Atlantic Blue Tangs were also common, both as individuals and schools. They are yellow as juveniles and blue as adults.

Surgeonfish are related.

We saw a few nurse sharks and a bull shark but only disappearing into the distance. The next biggest fish we saw were Barracuda. This big one (4 ft) let me approach quite close. Maybe it was big enough not to be afraid of me.

Fish come in all shapes and sizes. Long and skinny like the trumpetfish, and short and stubby like the trunkfish and porcupinefish.

Lionfish are invasive and quite a problem in some areas. Here we only saw a few.

I was happy to see a few of the hard to spot fish, like this Peacock Flounder. (It stands out in the photo more than it does in the water.

Usually jawfish disappear into their burrows when you get close, but this one actually came out to have its photo taken.

I only saw a few angelfish, they didn't seem to be as common here.

A nice big Queen Triggerfish

I don't usually think of stingrays as fish, but technically they are. They are cartilaginous like sharks (rather than bony). We saw a few Southern Stingrays. They often hide in the sand but if you get to close they'll shake off the sand and swim away.

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Sea Turtles

Akumel (where we were diving) means "place of turtles" in Mayan. And we have seen turtles on almost every dive. They also seemed less afraid people. Other places turtles tend to swim away as soon as they see you.

The turtles often had shark sucker remoras with them. They didn't seem to be attached, just hanging around.

Sea turtles are actually quite graceful swimmers.

Most of the ones we saw were Green Turtles, but looking at my photos afterwards, I realized one had been a Hawksbill. The main difference is the shape of their head and beak.

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