One of the wonders of the sea is the diversity and action that happens on a macro level.
We have a massive variety of tiny species that perform incredibly complex life choices. The smallest creatures have personality and are self-aware; and they form the foundation of the food chain for the larger, more famous species. I’ve included some shots with animal emotion… see the hermit crab.
This collect includes a few photos of coral and plant species as well – the who universe for these tiny creatures. The corals are from the Great Barrier Reef, waters around northern New South Wales, and Indonesia.
This is a featherstar. It looks like a plant but is actually an animal, and swims around from coral to coral. They are truly amazing creatures and quite common in the seas around Byron Bay.
This is healthy soft coral. A tiny glassy shrimp can be seen on the left of the coral
Red coral. A tiny hairy lobster can be seen in the centre (small purple hairy thing.)
This clear glassy shrimp was lurking around in an anenome. If you look very closely, you can see its brain and eye nerves (I think?)
This black and yellow frogfish is positioned between two coral stalks, waiting for breakfast to swim past. It uses the stalk on the nose to lure prey.
This thing is the Glaucus Marginatus. Unfortunately this one's on the beach and not where it should be. Normally, they walk around on the underneath of the surface of the sea (ie, upside down on the skin of the ocean) and eat bluebottle jellyfish. They then use the poison from the bluebottle: to kill the next Bluebottle. Fight fire with fire!
This hermit crab keeps anenomes on its shell - perhaps as pets, but more likely as protection against predators. They look like awesome shoulderpads for an Army General.
This is a sea krait, off Bali in Indonesia. They are allegedly very poisonous, but tend to be curious and not at all aggressive.
This is a frogfish waiting for dinner. It's got a face even a mother would hate.
These little guys are barbershop shrimp (from Byron Bay)
This is a healthy soft coral
This is a jellyfish descending from the surface. It resembles some sort of UFO!
This hermit crab was attempting to upgrade its residence... while a moray eel looked on, ready to pounce. The hermit crab did eventually move safely to its new home (probably because the eel was distracted by the photographer.)
The sun rises behind a fan coral (in strong current)
The indignity of realising that your home is too big for your legs
This Crown of Thorns starfish is highly toxic and devastates the coral reef. The spines are poisonous - don't pick it up with bare hands.
This is a yabby on Mount Cootha. It swam up the creek during a storm. The next night, there were eels, but no yabby...
This yellow trumpetfish is hiding out between a number of similarly-coloured fish
This is the Orangutan collector crab, sitting on the edge of an anenome. The crabs collect detritus in their fur to hide from predators.
