Going through my photo library for a project last week, I came across this image of a black grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci) from my trip last year aboard the M/V Shear Water in the Bahamas. Much to my dismay, I was never able to find time to write about the enjoyable and educational trip, as […]

The Oxford dictionary’s online edition defines the term “flamboyant” as having as one of its meanings: “brightly coloured and showy”.
Metasepia pfefferi, commonly known as the flamboyant cuttlefish, is actually only occasionally brightly coloured and showy. Most of the time, it’s dull and drab, adopting the tone and texture of its background to remain unassuming.
I […]

I’ve been struggling for some time now to write something about my recent trip to swim with sea lions. Struggling not so much because of writer’s block, but more due to writer’s flood, if there is such a thing.
You see, swimming among sea lions at Carnac Island is at once exactly like all other […]

Counterintuitive as this might seem at first blush, one of the things you absolutely must do to get better photographs of marine life (or anything in nature, actually), is to invest as much effort as possible into looking, as opposed to pressing the shutter.
The more time you spend watching a fish, crab or whatever, […]

Here’s another image I’d forgotten about. It’s a lizard fish, really close-up and head-on. This one sort of reminds me of Jabba the Hut.
Ever notice how these fish often seem to perch on their pectoral fins so they’re pointing upward? I watched a few of these fish for several hours one day, and around […]

Sorting through one of my hard disks again, I came across some images I’d forgotten about. This one reminded me of how lucky I am.
This is what I can only describe as a “herd” of humphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum), which I swam with for an hour and a half or so, very very early […]

This is way too cool. Many people know that toothed cetaceans (like dolphins, sperm whales, killer whales, etc.) use echolocation as a sensory tool to find their way around and to hunt for food.
Researchers have traditionally viewed baleen whales (like humpbacks) as being unable to do this. Until now.
A research team (comprising members from […]

The first manta born in captivity had died. Apparenty, the father abused the baby manta by chasing it around, harassing it and slamming into the little ray, inflicting injuries. No one knows the reason for this behaviour.

Video of the world’s first live birth of a manta in captivity. Healthy baby female, about 1.9 metres across, born at the Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan. Video is from a TBS news broadcast. (They appear to have deleted the page with the video)
The video file is 1.7 MB. Click the graphic below and […]

Not everything I come across underwater is pleasant. On an evening dive at Batu Angus in Lembeh, my dive guide and I ran across what I can only describe as a full-blown invasion of crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci).
As the sun set and we started to surface, I spotted first one, then two, then five, […]

Managed to get an ID on this goby from a friend. Turns out that the common name for this fish is a “blackfin coral goby” (Paragobiodon lacunicolus).
What a boring name. I don’t care, I’m still calling it a “panda goby”.

Wisdom is an illusory concept. More often than not, we’re not aware of the wisdom we lack until we reflect on situations in hindsight. As such, the quantum of wisdom we possess often falls short of the level we actually require. It seems the fate of humanity to profit from experience mostly in retrospect, […]