Combers belong to the same group of fish as groupers, the Serranidae, though they reside in a separate genus, Serranus. A group containing around thirty species. As far as I can tell from online sources the combers are not widespread, being most common in the Mediterranean and associated waters, [...]
I think a lot of people have a particular liking for gobies, there’s plenty to choose from with around two thousand or so species. Not only are there plenty of ’em, but they are widely distributed, from cold arctic seas to warm coral-rich waters. For me, one of my favorite species [...]
I posted a few images, in an earlier posting, showing some large corals colonies I came across on a dive to a very healthy reef in the northern Red Sea. I though I should post a few images showing what a more typical reef scene might look like. I’ve chosen images from the shallows, which I [...]
The sheltered coral gardens of the Red Sea are some of the finest in the world, with excellent growth and usually, equally excellent visibility, making for great images. On this dive I decided to focus on some of the more massive coral colonies. My first is this amazing Turbinaria, which if you [...]
On some rare occasions, the natural cracks and swim-throughs that form on a healthy reef see so much growth near the surface, that growth of photosynthetic species below is severely curtailed and a network of dimly lit cave-like habitats can form. Here are some images. I’m no geographer, [...]
One of the joys of photographing fish in the wild is the chance to see them showing natural behavior ‘en masse’. Not that it is always easy to image though; whilst I may think of myself as a passive observer, the fish consider me a likely predator. I’ve been trying to capture an [...]
It has been a while since I’ve shared these images, so I thought they’d be worth circulating again, this is after all, one of the best small scale reef creation projects I’ve witnessed, and, there’s a video. I was on a journalism trip to the lovely island of Grenada, [...]
Take a look at this Broomtail wrasse (Cheilinus lunulatus) from the Red Sea and compare it with the Dusky parrotfish (Scarus niger), below. Do you see any similarities? Both have a very bright and very visible yellow marking just behind the eye and above the pectoral fin. What function does [...]
