At left is a pink anemonefish in an
anemone. He was probably about two inches long.
At right is another picture of a pink anemoneme
fish.
Note that the anemone has drawn itself up into a ball, showing its
shiny lavender underside. It almost looks like its made of lycra
or
nylon. I believe they do this when they are eating.Whatever the reason, I doubt the anemone fish appreciate it much, since the manuever limits the number of tentacles available for them to hide in.
At left is another pink anemonefish
that kind of looks like he's surfing the anemone in the current. The interactions of the clowns with the anemones are great fun to watch.
At right is a very large
nudibranch egg ribbon. It must have been three or four inches
across and perhaps an inch wide. It must have been layed
by a very large nudibranch. At first glance it looks man made, like someone dropped a scarf or hankerchief. Nature often works in unusual ways.
At left is a very
bright nudibranch egg ribbon.
Note the cirucular layout. I presume the conspicuous
coloring
indicates that the eggs are poisonous. Brightly colored ocean
creatures
often are. They have no reason to hide.
At right is a large soft coral. The
richness of the color and the intricacy of the patterns are
unbelievable. We saw quite a few soft corals on the wall dives. They were often found in close proximity to one another. Red and purple soft corals were the most common.
I'd never seen one of these before, but believe it's a large feather star. It spreads its arms in a net like fashion to catches very small fish, eggs, and various other things. It then moves the catch down the arms to its mouth, which is at the center.
It had a span of about 18 inches and attached to part of a sea fan, facing the current.
At right is a feather star in the
balled up position you normally see them in during the day. Feather stars are nocturnal feeders, and shift to a wide open position (like the one above) in the evening to enhance their ability to catch food.
At left is a small speckled moray eel. We only
saw a handful of morays in all of our diving in Palau. I'm not
sure why. They're much more common in other parts of the pacific.
This is a butterfly fish of some denomination.
Butterflys
are normally found in pairs though this guy was flying solo.