Weird creatures of the not so deep

Words and images by RenĂŠ van Stekelenborg, www.prvanstekelenborg.com

Weird creatures of the not so deep seas

Clownfish are not, I repeat, they are not funny. Just like clowns themselves. But, what is interesting is that these fish play hide and seek in a kind of coral that’s electrifying to nearly any other species.

Beauty can be misleading. These moonfish don’t harm any creature. But jellyfish are considered to be the icing on a cake.

That’s such an unlucky day for the jellyfish. In a kind of piranha rage the moonfish continuously will attack ‘till the jellyfish is no more.

Mackarel schools go off to diner all at the same time. Very early in the morning and around 5 pm you’ll see them hunting for plankton.

Wildly operating in systems they don’t see a diver as a potential obstacle. They try to swim right through you. If that could be possible.

I can’t recall what this is. But upclose it looks frightning and weird.

Murray eels are silly creatures. I’ve only witnessed a vicious eel biting an Australian guy. But, hey, if I got waken up early by a fat stranger, I would be pissed off too.

This octopus kept on unfolding itself out of a little hole between the corals. It’s tentacles must have been a merely two meters long.

Look at those blue spots, you can drown in them! What practical use do these spots have? It’s no kind of camouflage. And I don’t think it is about attracting females either.

I don’t know for sure, but this fish looks like a flounder or a plaice.

Very nice on a piece of toast, very strange to see them moving on the bottom of the Red Sea.

The Red, The brown and the black ones are now globally regarded as one hell of a plague. This is the lionfish and it is very harmfull to man, coral and fellow fishes. Because, just like a lion, it has very few natural enemies.

For some years ago, one top chef tried to get this fish on the menu at Curacao. It should taste a bit like snapper, I’d guess.

This helpless animal is being referred as the balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish or puffers. They are generally believed to be the secondmost poisonous vertebrates in the world, after the golden poison frog. In recent research wild dolphins were found getting high on pufferfish toxin. That’ll explain the dolphins permanent euphoric smiles stretched across their faces.

If anyone could help me out with this one, please contact me: rene@prvanstekelenborg.nl. It is a kind of flattened nudibranch but merely a 20 centimeters long. It has eyes like light bulbs and a strange kind of antenna like nose.

Credits:

All photos were taken with a Panasonic Lumix TZ1, a Canon Powershot GX-1 and a Nikon D3000 from 2008 until 2011 in the Dominican Republic, at Cuba, at Koh Tao in Thailand, at Curacao, the Dutch Antilles, at Isla Mujeres, Mexico, at Dahab, Marsa Alam, Abu Dabab and Taba, Egypt. Â

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