A couple of urchins here. A familiar and quite common Red Pencil Urchin, and a Diadema Savignyi Urchin. The latter one is rare in Hawaii and looks a lot like the Long-spined Urchin, but is distinguished by the striking blue lines on its test.
I saw this man, down on the rocks below Upolu Airport, collecting Opihi. Opihi is the Hawaiian word for limpets, and they are a prized food for the locals. Gathering them though is not an easy task. For one thing, it takes place at the water line. Opihi pickers are guaranteed to get wet and have to take great care not to get washed out to sea. One or two seem to disappear every year.
The Opihi also have to be taken while they are feeding and relaxed. Otherwise they will be so firmly adhered to the rocks that no amount of prying will loosen them.
This was one of three octopuses I saw together recently. I think this one and one of the others were looking to mate, but my presence was spooking them. So I backed off and they did indeed appear to be going to mate, but none of my photos turned out as I was then too far away!
I spotted this small Pacific Day Octopus on the move and it quickly headed for a spot to settle down. The place it chose was just below a head of coral, which was occupied by an Arc-Eye Hawkfish. The hawkfish didn’t move, but didn’t look happy with its new neighbor.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 225. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful.’ See more responses here.
Also posted for Becky’s Squares: Shadows. See more responses here.
When I go snorkeling, I often go by a place known as Viper Rock. It got this name because in this rock is a small cave that was often occupied by a large Viper Moray Eel. I haven’t seen the eel in a long time, but the cave often has other occupants.
On a recent swim, a Giant Porcupinefish had claimed the spot and it rebuffed the approach of a smaller Giant Porcupinefish several times (top photo).
Next day when I got there, there were two Giant Porcupinefishes outside the entrance to the cave. Several times they swam towards the cave, then came back towards me (middle photos). It was only when I shifted my position a bit that I could see, inside the cave, the shape of a large lobster (bottom photo). It’s just to the left of the top porcupinefish, in the shadowy cave. Clearly the two fish did not relish the prospect of trying to evict the lobster!
Posted for Becky’s Squares: Shadows. See more responses here.
This month’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Any shade of brown and/or gray.’ See more responses here.
Also posted for Becky’s Squares: Shadows. See more responses here.
Graham's Island 