I’m a bit crabby.
Well at least many of my subjects this week were - from the tiniest Crab Zoe Larva (black water diving) and a huge Stone Crab (Indian River Lagoon), to a variety of hermit crabs and the largest Spongy Decorator Crab I have ever found (Blue Heron Bridge). When I saw the pink sponge laying on the bottom, I swam over to see if there were any little critters on or around it. I was shocked to discover that the sponge was attached to a decorator crab. It was over 4” long. I have no idea how he could walk while wearing it! For a brief glimpse of what that looked like (the color is really lousy) click here: Crab Video
Spongy Decorator Crab (Macrocoeloma trispinosum) - Blue Heron Bridge, Riviera Beach, FL
I also got a kick out of the Bareye Hermit with the tiny Brown Fanworm over its eye. Talk about accessorizing!
A few of my other favorites from this week around the ‘hood. Remember, you can click on an image to view it full screen.
For those of you who like the black water statistics, we started over 674 feet of water and ended over 575 feet. During our 2 hour dive we drifted 4.02 miles.
