Hawaii: A trip to the Waikiki Aquarium (and lunch)

Two days ago we went to the Waikiki Aquarium, which had mixed reviews on the Internet for being small. But I found it fascinating. And yes, it’s not a Sea World with trained mammals (ecch!), but it specializes in tropical reef fish, and that it does very well. It also has a great series of […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

Today’s photos comprise an underwater montage from reader Peter Klaver. Peter’s notes are indented. Here are some diving pictures of ‘(mostly) static’ underwater wildlife, shot on diving trips in Mozambique, Malaysian Borneo, and Australia. The first four are hard corals in the genus Acropora. The one on the first photo may be Acropora digitifera. The two […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

Please send me any good wildlife photos you have, as I am fretting over the lowering level of my photo tank. Thanks! Today we have some photos by Joe Dickinson, whose captions are indented: Here is a second set from Tomales Bay/Point Reyes. [JAC: see first set here.] I think these are least sandpipers (Calidris […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

We’re going to count astronomy as wildlife today, as it’s Honorary Wildlife®. These two swell Cosmos Photos come from reader Tim Anderson in Australia, and I’ve indented his notes. As always, click on the photos to enlarge them. It is the galaxy season in the Southern Hemisphere, which is to say that there are large […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

I suspect this will be the last installment here for about two weeks, but if you’ve sent in photos, never fear: I have them all here in Chicago. Today’s contribution is from Joe Dickinson, whose notes are indented: Not technically “wildlife”, nevertheless here are some photos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The first two are […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Carl Sufit has contributed some additional underwater shots; his commentary is indented. A few more from Cayman Brac.  I have loads of images to go through from past few trips to Bonaire (going public is a good incentive to actually do so), and can consider sending some after I’ve done so. Many phyla and […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

We have fishes, underwater invertebrates, and one birdie today. The underwater photographs come from reader Peter Klaver, whose notes are indented (readers with marine expertise might identify the squid and the last fish). Here are some photos and links to video clips of underwater wildlife I saw while on a scuba diving trip off the […]

Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Carl Sufit sent us some nice underwater photos, and I hope we’ll have more from him and others in the future. His notes are indented: After reading your notes from Hawaii, with various underwater images, I felt it was time to send you some of mine. Underwater photography is even harder than surface photography, […]

A spotting of the spectacular and rarely seen “dumbo octopus”

“Dumbo octopuses” are in the genus Grimpoteuthis (there are 31 species) and, for cephalopods, are pretty damn cute. They’re named after the fins on the mantle that make them look like Walt Disney’s flying elephant Dumbo They propel themselves by flapping these fins, as you’ll see below. The species are cosmopolitan but aren’t often seen […]

The “headless chicken monster”, a bizarre creature just filmed off Antarctica

I saw this beast on the NBC Evening News last night, and was blown away. At first I thought it was a nudibranch, a member of a group of free-swimming gastropod molluscs (sometimes called “sea slugs”) whose colors and movements have entranced biologists for years (see here for a video). But the beast on the […]