Ugly on the reefs

This ugly critter is called a crocodile fish, or sometimes a giant flathead. It’s about 1m long and lies around thinking that its camouflage is so good that it cannot be seen, but it doesn’t know how good the dive guides are at spotting things like this! I heard that three of these were spotted together on a dive a few days before, but no pictures have been provided yet so this may be another “divers tale”.

Nigel @ Two Fish

Check out more critters in the Two Fish Critter Gallery

Happy family

It was not until I viewed the picture on the pc that I noticed that there was a moray eel in the hole behind the cleaner shrimp! They must live together in the cave: the shrimp cleans the eel from parisites on its body whilst the eel gives protection.

Nigel @ Two Fish

Check out more critters in the Two Fish Critter Gallery

Sitting pretty

These long-nose hawkfish are always fun to chase around the underwater plants. Sometimes they will stay and pose for you but its never for very long so you cannot delay taking a picture.

Nigel @ Two Fish

Check out more critters in the Two Fish Critter Gallery

Painted frog fish visits Bunaken

One of our guides just found this 4-6 inch painted frog fish in the shallow reefs in front of the resort. These are very common in Lembeh but this is the first time that we have seen this in Bunaken. We hope he stays around for a bit.

Check out Critters on Flickr for more photos of frog fish.

Weirdest creature in Bunaken

This must be one of the weirdest critters i these waters. It is called a star gazer, and it was pictured on the slopes of the mainland whilst we were doing some DM training. It literally walked right between us so of course we had to break off the training to take some pictures! It spends most of its time buried in the sand with just its eyes showing, then leaps out to grab an unsuspecting fish that swims too close. It gets its name from “gazing as the stars” whilst buried in the sand.

Check out more critters in the Two Fish Critter Gallery

Best of the trip

Ken is a semi-professional photographer who visited us in Bunaken and Lembeh in Nov 2006. He considers this picture of a pygmy sea horse to be one of his best from his visit, but only of the one’s he has managed to go through so far - he has already posted a number of photos on his web site, but says that after a month’s worth of diving and over 9,000 photos, a lot of work still remains!

He is still trying to catalog his photos, and at the moment has identified 500 different species of sea life from just the one trip in Nov 06. “Absolutely amazing!” he says, and is tentatively planning to return in Nov 07.

Check out his web site on Kilili Photography