Day 143

FIJI

It's around -10°F in Korea... I miss Fiji!
Click to make this photo bigger!

Bula!  (That's Fijian for 'hello.')  Finally, at long last, it's time to get this blog back to its origins: OCEAN PICTURES!

"Oh, hi there.  Wait, what did you say?"

"Did you say ocean pictures?!"

"I LOVE OCEAN PICTURES!!!"

That's right, Mr. Moray.  Everybody loves ocean pictures, because the ocean is awesome.

Look at this shy anemonefish!  He's so cute!

It's been over a year (gasp!) since I've been in the ocean, and boy have I missed it.  Armed with my snorkel gear and an abundance of underwater camera gear, my family and I had a great time snorkeling around finding and photographing the coolest stuff around.

Anemonefish are cute, but they're actually the grumpiest guys in the ocean.

Look at that face.  Grumpy grump grump.

Okay, let's get down to business.  It's picture time.  First up is a fish I haven't identified yet--he's not in my fish book!--but it might a dartfish of some kind.

What a pretty painted face!

Close-up time.

Looking a bit slimmer here.

Next up: a pretty pink-and-purple sea cucumber, Holothuria edulis!  This is the beauty queen of sea cucumbers, I assure you.

That is a pretty bad tan line, my friend.

Glamour shot!  But what's that in the background?

Oh, just a photobombing fish making silly faces.

And now for something you might not have realized you wanted to see: the anus of a sea cucumber.

And now you've seen a sea cucumber's anus.

Inside the rectal cavity of some species of sea cucumber lives a parasitic fish called a pearlfish.  This particular sea cuke species is probably too small to host pearlfish, but many larger species are the unfortunate hosts of the nasty little butt-munchers--that is a literal insult, as the pearlfish will feast upon the gonads of the sea cucumber.

A pearlfish.
Photo courtesy of http://blog.aquanerd.com.

Pearlfish on the left, sea cuke's butt on the right.
Photo courtesy of this-magic-sea.

A pearlfish poking its head out of a sea cucumber's butt.
Photo courtesty of wodumedia.com.

The sea cucumber's main defense against pearlfish intrusion is to close its anus, but unfortunately the sea cuke breathes through its anus and must eventually open it back up, at which point the pearlfish saunters in.  Some sea cucumbers have developed something called 'anal teeth' to help protect against such parasites, but I strongly recommend that you don't google that.

Why am I telling you about this?  Because no matter how bad your day was, it wasn't as bad as the sea cucumber's.


Now back to cute things: banded pipefish!  They're a relative of seahorses.

Banded pipefish, also known as dragon pipefish.

Look at those little eyes!

It reminds me of a tiny delicate insect, with the fluttery fin and the straw-like mouth.

My favorite thing in the ocean: nudibranchs!  (That's pronounced "nood-ih-braink," fyi.)  There's over 3000 species of known nudibranchs, and it's estimated that there's at least 3000 more we haven't discovered or identified yet.  Nudibranchs are sea slugs, but you must admit that they're waaaay cooler than land slugs.

You're okay, buddy.  Not sure what your species is, though.

What a find!  A blue velvet nudibrach, Chelidonura varians!

Not very big, and not very scared of my hand.

Gorgeous!

Another nudibranch, less gorgous.  This one is Phyllidia varicosa.  It's ugly but still awesome.

Also, sea slugs have a super cool way of laying eggs in a spiral.

A little beat-up, but still pretty.

My mama found this next gem: a bearded fireworm!  I'd never seen one before, so this was a very cool find.  Good job, mama!

Pretty pretty pretty!

The white bits are called 'bristles' and only come out when the fireworm is alarmed.

Oh no, somebody's alarmed!

Fortunately my mama didn't poke it, because those white bristles are venomous.  They are basically tiny hollow needles full of a neurotoxin that can cause nausea, dizziness, and a (reportedly) large amount of pain.  They are notorious for sneaking into aquariums along with live coral, since that's what they eat.  Looky, but no touchy!

This guy is about an inch wide, and is at least one feet long.  I thought there were two at first,
but nope, just one long one!  This is definitely a specimen on the larger side.  Very cool!

Good job, mama, good job!

Here's a few more sea cucumber photos, because it's not like you wanted to sleep tonight or anything.

Looks like an alien, let's get closer.

Just imagine those feathery little tentacles grabbing at your face.

In case you're wondering, sea cucumbers are basically the earthworms of the sea.  They eat sand and filter out tiny edible particles.  Delish.

Another variety, definitely large enough for pearlfish violation.  This is the mouth-end, though.
And check out those tiny suckery feet on the bottle!  Cool!

I know you wanted a closer look.

Those light blue things?  More tentacles coming from his mouth.  Cute...?

Here's some awesome squids that my sister found!  A whole group, at least 40 or 50 individuals.  I don't know what the technical term for a group of squid is, but I'm going to call it a "squad."  A squad of squid.  Sounds good.

They change colors!  Their skin reflects their feelings.

Dark coloring means they're threatened, white means they're scared.
I'm so glad humans don't do this.

I found an octopus!  Unfortunately he disappeared before I could show anyone else.  No matter how big an octopus is, it can fit into any hole large enough to accommodate its beak.  And the beak is usually the size of a coin, so they can basically go anyway.

He snuck into a hidey-hole.

Ewwww, wrinkly.  He was out of sight about a second later.

A few more banded pipefish pictures to leave you with...

Look at that cute little pink tailfin!  Everything about this creature whispers "dainty."

Look at the skin patterning on the far left.  So cool!

Close-up time!  Make sure to look at the far left to see the cool pattern.

What a cutie-pie.

That's all for today!  But don't worry, there's plenty more ocean pictures in the works.  We had two cell phones and four underwater cameras on this trip, so I've got a lot of photos to go through.  Till next time!

-Ashton