In the two weeks we had in the Ragged Islands back in May, I spent most days underwater taking hundreds of photos with my new Panasonic TS6 underwater camera… oops make that thousands (1292 to be exact). The water was back in the 80’s ˚F, making for comfortable swimming over long periods of time. It has taken a while to process these photos after we made a quick passage to Florida and got sucked into land life.
The good news is that I purchased an updated set of Reef Identification books that are each a new edition over my current books. On first glance they seem very much expanded for reef fish and creatures, especially in the blenny & nudibranch categories. I hope to be able to correct a few mis-identifications & learn a bit more. Plus, I never had the Coral ID book so I added that to the collection. It’s already helped to solve a few mysteries, like this spiny flower coral that I thought was some sort of corallimorph.
The abundance, & variety of shapes, of elk horn coral reefs was noteworthy this year with several pristine reefs in the cuts.
When taking a picture of resident crabs, I found the close-up detail of the corallites fascinating.
Besides crabs, other residents on/in elkhorn coral include christmastree worms and tiny jewelfish (juvenile yellowtail damselfish).
I have encountered three new (to me) tunicates in the Bahamas this past season. Tunicates are a bizarre animal with incongruous shapes, sizes and colors.
I revisited the geometric encrusting tunicates in the same spot I first discovered them.
Each little black circle is the inflow of a single tunicate that clusters together with others to share an outflow hole (white).
Upon examination of a blenny photo, I only realized after the fact that it captured a colony of social encrusting tunicates (green tube-like thingies) in the background.
I did notice this white condominium tunicate while underwater and correctly assumed the species due to similarity with the strawberry tunicates that I’ve seen.
It is a cluster of individual tunicates each with the 2 holes for inflow and outflow.
Another abundant reef creature in the Bahamas are hydroids. I’ve seen many new types here and find them quite elegant in their own way. The caution is to avoid touching them since they sting.
The christmastree hydroid is commonly found in the Caribbean and easy to identify because it looks like a decorated Christmas tree with ornaments, each branch ending in a ball. Like most hydroids it grows on old reef and usually prefers high current areas.
The algae hydroid is similar, but has multiple, feathery polyps on its branches. I love the delicacy and fine detail of the tentacles on each type of hydroid.
Unbranched hydroids are about 1-2 inches long and only have a single branch of alternating polyps.
A colony of unbranched hydroids sits beyond the redlip blenny below.
On my last snorkel I noticed a lovely solitary gorgonian hydroid. As the name indicates they live on soft corals, but they are not always solitary. The only other time I’d seen one of these was in Roatan.
Upon closer inspection, there were several other “solitary” gorgonian hydroids on the back of this Bahamian sea fan. It was a challenge taking photos as the heavy current in this area swayed the fan back and forth. The yellow polyps of this sea fan were all wide-open in the current for feeding.
Interestingly, the polyps appeared to be also growing up the stalk of the hydroid, until I realized that “branches” of the gorgonian must grow out to host the 1/2 inch hydroids.
Even though I tried not disturb the fan, after hovering close for photos those polyps ended up closing.
Still processing more fish, blenny, shrimp and other critter photos...